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A  BOOK  OF  FAMOUS  VERSE.  Selected 
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HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


ESSAYS  IN  MINIATURE 


BY 


AGNES  REPPLIER,  LITT.  D. 


BOSTON    AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
ftfoetfi&e  prejtf  Cambri&0e 


Copyright,  1892, 
BY  CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER  &  CO, 

Copyright,  1895, 
BY  AGNES  REPPLIER. 

All  rights  reserved. 


PR 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

OUR  FRIENDS,  THE  BOOKS n 

TRIALS  OF  A  PUBLISHER 28 

THE  OPPRESSION  OF  NOTES 45 

CONVERSATION  IN  NOVELS 59 

A  SHORT  DEFENCE  OF  VILLAINS 70 

A  BY-WAY  IN  FICTION 87 

COMEDY  OF  THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE 104 

MR.  WILDE'S  Intentions 121 

HUMORS  OF  GASTRONOMY       129 

CHILDREN  IN  FICTION 144 

THREE  FAMOUS  OLD  MAIDS 157 

THE  CHARM  OF  THE  FAMILIAR 171 

OLD  WORLD  PETS • 182 

BATTLE  OF  THE  BABIES 195 

THE  NOVEL  OF  INCIDENT 207 

GHOSTS   .    .              , 218 


253383 


ESSAYS  IN  MINIATURE 


OUR  FRIENDS,  THE  BOOKS 


is  a  short  paragraph  in  Hazlitt's 
•*•  Conduct  of  Life  that  I  read  very  often, 
and  always  with  fresh  delight.  He  is  offering 
much  good  counsel  to  a  little  lad  at  school,  and 
when  he  comes  to  a  matter  upon  which  mosc 
counselors  are  wont  to  be  exceedingly  didac 
tic  and  diffuse  —  the  choice  of  books  —  he  con 
denses  all  he  has  to  say  into  a  few  wise  and 
gentle  words  that  are  well  worth  taking  to 
heart  : 

"  As  to  the  works  you  will  have  to  read  by 
choice  or  for  amusement,  the  best  are  the  com 
monest.  The  names  of  many  of  them  are  al 
ready  familiar  to  you.  Read  them  as  you  grow 

up  with  all  the  satisfaction  in  your  power,  and 
ii 


y>  ;  :  /  :     OUR  ;FRifc?i!ps>  .THE  BOOKS 


make  much  of  them.  It  is  perhaps  the  great 
est  pleasure  you  will  have  in  life,  the  one  you 
will  think  of  longest,  and  repent  of  least.  If 
my  life  had  been  more  full  of  calamity  than  it 
has  been  (much  more  than  yours,  I  hope,  will 
be)  I  would  live  it  over  again,  my  poor  little 
boy,  to  have  read  the  books  I  did  in  my 
youth." 

In  all  literature  there  is  nothing  truer  01 
better  than  this,  and  its  sad  sincerity  contrasts 
strangely  with  the  general  tone  of  the  essay, 
which  is  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  Lord  Ches 
terfield.  But  here,  at  least,  Hazlitt  speaks  with 
the  authority  of  one  whose  books  had  ever 
been  his  friends;  who  had  sat  up  all  night  as  a 
child  over  Paul  and  Virginia,  and  to  whom  the 
mere  sight  of  an  odd  volume  of  some  good  old 
English  author,  on  a  street  stall,  brought  back 
with  keen  and  sudden  rapture  the  flavor  of 
those  early  joys  which  he  remembered  longest, 
and  repented  least.  His  words  ring  consoling 
ly  in  these  different  days,  when  we  have  not 
only  ceased  reading  what  is  old,  but  when  —  a 
far  greater  misfortune  —  we  have  forgotten  how 


OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS  13 

to  read  "  with  all  the  satisfaction  in  our  pow 
er,"  and  with  a  simple  surrendering  of  ourselves 
to  the  pleasure  which  has  no  peer.  There  are 
so  many  things  to  be  considered  now  besides 
pleasure,  that  we  have  well-nigh  abandoned 
the  effort  to  be  pleased.  In  the  first  place,  it 
is  necessary  to  "  keep  up  "  with  a  decent  pro 
portion  of  current  literature,  and  this  means 
perpetual  labor  and  speed,  whereas  idleness 
and  leisure  are  requisite  for  the  true  enjoyment 
of  books.  In  the  second  place,  few  of  us  are 
brave  enough  to  withstand  the  pressure  which 
friends,  mentors  and  critics  bring  to  bear  upon 
us,  and  which  effectually  crushes  anything  like 
the  weak  indulgence  of  our  own  tastes.  The 
reading  they  recommend  being  generally  in  the 
nature  of  a  corrective,  it  is  urged  upon  us  with 
little  regard  to  personal  inclination;  in  fact,  the 
less  we  like  it,  the  greater  our  apparent  need. 
There  are  people  in  this  world  who  always  in 
sist  upon  others  remodeling  their  diet  on  a 
purely  hygienic  basis;  who  entreat  us  to  avoid 
sweets  or  acids,  or  tea  or  coffee,  or  whatever 
we  chance  to  particularly  like;  who  tell  us  per* 


14  OUR   FRIENDS,   THE  BOOKS 

suasively  that  cress  and  dandelions  will  purify 
our  blood;  that  celery  is  an  excellent  febri 
fuge;  that  shaddocks  should  be  eaten  for  the 
sake  of  their  quinine,  and  fish  for  its  phospho 
rus;  that  stewed  fruit  is  more  wholesome  than 
raw;  that  rice  is  more  nutritious  than  potatoes; 
— who  deprive  us,  in  a  word,  of  that  hearty  hu 
man  happiness  which  should  be  ours  when  din 
ing.  Like  Mr.  Woodhouse,  they  are  capable 
of  having  the  sweetbreads  and  asparagus  car 
ried  off  before  our  longing  eyes,  and  baked  ap 
ples  provided  as  a  substitute. 

It  is  in  the  same  benevolent  spirit  that  kind- 
hearted  critics  are  good  enough  to  warn  us 
against  the  books  we  love,  and  to  prescribe  for 
us  the  books  we  ought  to  read.  With  robust 
assurance  they  ofTer  to  give  our  tutelage  their 
own  personal  supervision,  and  their  disinterest 
ed  zeal  carries  them  occasionally  beyond  the 
limits  of  discretion.  I  have  been  both  amazed 
and  gratified  by  the  lack  of  reserve  with  which 
these  unknown  friends  have  volunteered  to 
guide  my  own  footsteps  through  the  perilous 
paths  of  literature.  They  are  so  urgent,  too, 


OUR  FRIENDS,   THE  BOOKS  15 

not  to  say  severe,  in  their  manner  of  proffer 
ing  assistance  :  "  To  Miss  Repplier  we  would 
particularly  recommend  "—and  then  follows  a 
list  of  books  of  which  I  dare  say  I  stand  in 
open  need;  but  which  I  am  naturally  indis 
posed  to  consider  with  much  kindness,  thrust 
upon  me,  as  they  are,  like  paregoric  or  a  por 
ous  plaster.  If  there  be  people  who  can  take 
their  pleasures  medicinally,  let  them  read  by 
prescription  and  grow  fat !  But  let  me  •  rather 
keep  for  my  friends  those  dear  and  familiar 
volumes  which  have  given  me  a  large  share  of 
my  life's  happiness.  If  they  are  somewhat  an 
tiquated  and  out  of  date,  I  have  no  wish  to 
flout  their  vigorous  age.  A  book,  Hazlitt  re 
minds  us,  is  not,  like  a  woman,  the  worse  for 
being  old.  If  they  are  new,  I  do  not  scorn 
them  for  a  fault  which  is  common  to  all  their 
kind.  Paradise  Lost  was  once  new,  and  was 
regarded  as  a  somewhat  questionable  novelty. 
If  they  come  from  afar,  or  are  compatriots  of 
my  own,  they  are  equally  well-beloved.  There 
can  be  no  aliens  in  the  ranks  of  literature,  no 
national  prejudice  in  an  honest  enjoyment  of 


l6  OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS 

art.  The  book,  after  all,  and  not  the  date  or 
birthplace  of  its  author,  is  of  material  impor 
tance.  7  It  seems  ungracious  to  refuse  to  be  a 
terrcefilius"  says  Mr.  Arnold;  "but  England 
is  not 'all  the  world."  Neither,  for  that  matter, 
is  America,  nor  even  Russia.  The  universe  is 
a  little  wider  and  a  little  older  than  we  are 
pleased  to  think,  and  to  have  lived  long  and 
traveled  far  does  not  necessarily  imply  inferi 
ority.  The  volume  that  has  crossed  the  seas, 
the  volume  that  has  survived  its  generation, 
stand  side  by  side  with  their  new-born  Amer 
ican  brother,  and  there  is  no  lack  of  harmony 
in  such  close  companionship.  Books  of  every 
age  and  of  every  nation  show  a  charming 
adaptability  in  their  daily  intercourse;  and,  if 
left  to  themselves,  will  set  off  each  other's 
merits  in  the  most  amiable  and  disinterested 
manner,  each  one  growing  better  by  contact 
with  its  excellent  neighbor.  It  is  only  when 
the  patriotic  critic  comes  along,  and  stirs  up 
dissensions  in  their  midst,  that  this  peaceful 
atmosphere  is  rent  with  sudden  discord;  that 
the  English  book  grows  disdainful  and  super- 


OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS  I/ 

cilious;  the  American,  aggressive  and  sarcas 
tic;  the  French,  malicious  and  unkind.  It  is 
only  when  we  apply  to  them  a  test  which  is 
neither  wise  nor  worthy  that  they  show  all 
their  bad  qualities,  and  afford  a  wrangling 
ground  for  the  ill-natured  reviewers  of  two 
continents. 

There  is  a  story  told  of  the  Russian  poet, 
Pushkin,  which  I  like  to  think  true,  because  it 
is  so  pretty.  When  he  was  carried  home  fatal 
ly  wounded  from  the  duel  which  cost  him  his 
life,  his  young  wife,  who  had  been  the  inno 
cent  cause  of  the  tragedy,  asked  him  whether 
there  were  no  relatives  or  friends  whom  he 
wished  to  see  summoned  to  his  bedside.  The 
dying  man  lifted  his  heavy  eyes  to  the  shelf 
where  stood  his  favorite  books,  and  murmured 
faintly  in  reply,  "Farewell,  my  friends." 
When  we  remember  that  Pushkin  lived  before 
Russian  literature  had  become  a  great  and  dis 
piriting  power,  when  we  realize  that  he  had 
never  been  ordered  by  critics  to  read  Turgue- 
neff,  never  commanded  severely  to  worship 
Tolstoi'  or  be  an  outcast  in  the  land,  never 


18  OUR   FRIENDS,   THE   BOOKS 

even  reveled  in  the  dreadful  gloom  of  Dos 
toievsky,  it  seems  incredible  to  the  well-in 
structed  that  he  should  have  loved  his  books 
so  much.  It  is  absolutely  afflicting  to  think 
that  many  of  these  same  volumes  were  foreign, 
were  romantic,  perhaps  even  cheerful  in  their 
character;  that  they  were  not  his  mentors,  his 
disciplinarians,  his  guides  to  a  higher  and  sad 
der  life,  but  only  his  "  friends."  Why,  Hazlitt 
himself  could  have  used  no  simpler  term  of 
endearment.  Charles  Lamb  might  have  ut 
tered  the  very  words  when  he  closed  his  pa 
tient  eyes  in  the  dull  little  cottage  at  Edmon 
ton.  Sir  Walter  Scott  might  have  murmured 
them  on  that  still  September  morn  when  the 
clear  rippling  of  the  Tweed  hushed  his  tired 
heart  to  rest.  I  think  that  Shelley  bade  some 
swift,  unconscious  farewell  to  all  the  dear  de 
lights  of  reading,  when  he  thrust  into  his  pock 
et  the  little  volume  of  Keats,  with  its  cover 
bent  hastily  backward,  and  rose,  still  dreamy 
with  fairy-land,  to  face  a  sudden  death.  I 
think  that  Montaigne  bade  farewell  to  the 
fourscore  "every-day  books"  that  were  his 


OUR   FRIENDS,   THE   BOOKS 

chosen  companions,  before  turning  serenely 
away  from  the  temperate  pleasures  of  life. 

For  all  these  men  loved  literature,  not  con- 
tentiously,  nor  austerely,  but  simply  as  their 
friend.  All  read  with  that  devout  sincerity 
which  precludes  petulance,  or  display,  or  let 
tered  asceticism,  the  most  dismal  self-torment 
in  the  world.  In  that  delicious  dialogue  of 
Landor's  between  Montaigne  and  Scaliger,  the 
scholar  intimates  to  the  philosopher  that  his 
library  is  somewhat  scantily  furnished,  and 
that  he  and  his  father  between  them  have  writ 
ten  nearly  as  many  volumes  as  Montaigne  pos 
sesses  on  his  shelves.  "  Ah  !  "  responds  the 
sage  with  gentle  malice,  "to  write  them  is 
quite  another  thing  ;  but  one  reads  books  with 
out  a  spur,  or  even  a  pat  from  our  Lady 
Vanity." 

Could  anything  be  more  charming,  or  more 
untrue  than  this  ?  Montaigne,  perched  tran 
quilly  on  his  Guyenne  hill-slope,  may  have 
escaped  the  goad  ;  but  we,  the  victims  of  our 
swifter  day,  know  too  well  how  remorselessly 
Lady  Vanity  pricks  us  round  the  course.  Are 


20  OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS 

we  not  perpetually  showing  our  paces  at  her 
command,  and  under  the  sharp  incentive  of 
her  heel  ?  Yet  Charles  Lamb,  in  the  heart  of 
London,  preserved  by  some  fine  instinct  the 
same  intellectual  freedom  that  Montaigne 
cherished  in  sleepy  Gascony.  He  too  was 
fain  to  read  for  pleasure,  and  his  unswerving 
sincerity  is  no  less  enviable  than  the  clearness 
of  his  literary  insight.  Indeed,  while  many  of 
his  favorite  authors  may  have  no  message  for 
our  ears,  yet  every  line  in  which  he  writes  his 
love  is  pregnant  with  enjoyment ;  every  word 
expresses  subtly  a  delicious  sense  of  satisfac 
tion.  The  soiled  and  torn  copies  of  Tom 
Jones  and  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  from  the 
circulating  library,  which  speak  eloquently 
to  him  of  the  thousand  thumbs  that  have 
turned  over  each  well-worn  page  ;  the  "  kind- 
hearted  play-book "  which  he  reaches  down 
from  some  easy  shelf;  the  old  Town  and 
Country  Magazine  which  he  finds  in  the  win 
dow-seat  of  an  inn  ;  the  "  garrulous,  pleasant 
history  "  of  Burnet ;  the  "  beautiful,  bare  nar 
rative  "  of  Robinson  Crusoe ;  the  antiquated, 


OUR   FRIENDS,   THE   BOOKS  21 

time-stained  edition  of  "  that  fantastic  old 
great  man,"  Robert  Burton  ;  the  Folio  Beau 
mont  and  Fletcher — all  these  and  many  more 
are  Lamb's  tried  friends,  and  he  writes  of  them 
with  lingering  affection.  He  is  even  able, 
through  some  fine  choice  of  words,  to  convey 
to  us  the  precise  degree  and  quality  of  pleasure 
which  they  yield  him,  and  which  he  wins  us  to 
share,  not  by  exhortations  or  reproaches,  but 
gently,  with  alluring  smiles,  and  hinted  prom 
ises  of  reward.  How  craftily  he  holds  each 
treasured  volume  before  our  eyes  !  How  apt 
the  brief,  caressing  sentence  in  which  he  sings 
its  praises  ! — "  The  sweetest  names,  and  which 
carry  a  perfume  in  the  mention,  are  Kit  Mar 
lowe,  Drayton,  Drummond  of  Hawthornden, 
and  Cowley."  "  Milton  almost  requires  a 
solemn  service  of  music  to  be  played  before 
you  enter  upon  him.  Who  listens,  had  need 
bring  docile  thoughts,  and  purged  ears." 
1  'Winter  evenings — the  world  shutout — with 
less  of  ceremony  the  gentle  Shakespeare  en 
ters.  At  such  a  season,  the  Tempest,  or  his 
own  Winter  s  Tale" 


22  OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS 

In  fact,  the  knowledge  of  when  to  read  a 
book  is  almost  as  valuable  as  the  knowledge  of 
what  book  to  read,  and  Lamb,  as  became  a 
true  lover  of  literature,  realized  instinctively 
that  certain  hours  and  certain  places  seem 
created  expressly  for  the  supreme  enjoyment 
of  an  author,  who  yields  to  these  harmonious 
surroundings  his  best  and  rarest  gifts.  To 
pick  up  The  Faerie  Queene  as  a  stop-gap  in  the 
five  or  six  impatient  minutes  before  dinner,  to 
carry  Candide  into  the  "  serious  avenues"  of  a 
cathedral,  to  try  and  skim  over  Richardson 
when  in  the  society  of  a  lively  girl — Lamb 
knew  too  well  that  these  unholy  feats  are  the 
accomplishments  of  an  intellectual  acrobat, 
not  of  a  modest  and  simple-hearted  reader. 
Hazlitt  also  was  keenly  alive  to  the  influences 
of  time  and  place.  His  greatest  delight  in  por 
ing  over  the  books  of  his  youth  lay  in  the 
many  recollections  they  aroused  of  scenes  and 
moments  rich  in  vanished  joys.  He  opened  a 
faded,  dusty  volume,  and  behold  !  the  spot 
where  first  he  read  it,  the  day  it  was  received, 
Ihe  feeling  of  the  air,  the  fields,  the  sky,  all  re- 


OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS  23 

turned  to  him  with  charming  distinctness,  and 
with  them  returned  his  first  rapturous  impres 
sion  of  that  long-closed,  long-neglected  ro 
mance  :  "  Twenty  years  are  struck  off  the  list, 
and  I  am  a  child  again."  Mr.  Pater  lays 
especial  emphasis  on  the  circumstances  under 
which  our  favorite  authors  are  read.  "  A 
book,"  he  says,  "  like  a  person,  has  its  fortunes 
with  one  ;  is  lucky  or  unlucky  in  the  precise 
moment  of  its  falling  in  our  way ;  and  often, 
by  some  happy  accident,  ranks  with  us  for 
something  more  than  its  independent  value." 
Thus  it  is  that  Marius  and  Fabian,  nestled  in 
the  ripened  corn  amid  the  cool  brown  shadows, 
receive  from  the  Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius  a 
strange  keen  pleasure  ;  each  lad  taking  from 
the  story  that  which  he  is  best  fitted  to  absorb  ; 
each  lad  as  unmindful  of  the  other's  feelings  as 
of  the  grosser  elements  in  the  tale.  For 
without  doubt  a  book  has  a  separate  mes 
sage  for  every  reader,  and  tells  him,  of  good 
or  evil,  that  which  he  is  able  to  hear.  Plato, 
indeed,  complains  of  all  books  that  they  lack 
reticence  or  propriety  toward  different  classes 


24  OUR   FRIENDS,   THE   BOOKS 

of  persons,  and  his  protest  embodies  the  aver 
sion  of  the  flexible  Greek  mind  for  the  pre 
cision  of  written  literature.  A  poem  or  an 
oration  which,  crystallized  into  characters, 
speaks  to  all  alike,  and  reveals  itself  indiscrim 
inately  to  everybody,  is  of  less  value  to  the 
ancient  scholar  than  the  poem  or  oration 
which  lingers  in  the  master's  mind,  and  main 
tains  a  delicate  reserve  toward  the  inferior 
portion  of  the  community.  Plato  is  so  far  re 
moved  from  the  modern  spirit  which  seeks  to 
persuade  the  multitude  to  read  Shakespeare 
and  Milton,  that  he  practically  resents  their 
peering  with  rude,  but  pardonable  curiosity, 
into  the  stately  domains  of  genius.  We  have 
now  grown  so  insistently  generous  in  these 
matters  that  our  unhappy  brothers,  harassed 
beyond  endurance,  may  well  envy  the  plebeian 
Greeks  their  merciful  limitations  ;  or  wish,  with 
the  little  girl  in  Punch,  that  they  had  lived  in 
the  time  of  Charles  II.,  "for  then  education 
was  very  much  neglected."  But  strive  as  we 
may,  we  cannot  coerce  great  authors  into  uni 
versal  complaisance.  Plato  himself,  were  he 


OUR   FRIENDS,   THE   BOOKS  25 

so  unfortunate  as  to  be  living  now,  would  rec 
ognize  and  applaud  their  manifest  reserves. 
Even  to  the  elect  they  speak  with  varying 
voices,  and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  believe 
that  all  have  read  alike.  When  Guy  Manner- 
ing  was  first  given  to  the  public,  who  awaited 
it  with  frantic  eagerness,  Wordsworth  thought 
fully  observed  that  it  was  a  novel  in  the  style 
of  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  Murray,  from  whom  one 
expects  more  discernment,  wrote  to  Hogg  that 
Meg  Merrilies  was  worthy  of  Shakespeare  ; 
"  but  all  the  rest  of  the  novel  might  have  been 
written  by  Scott's  brother,  or  any  other  body." 
Blackwood,  about  the  same  time,  wrote  to 
Murray  :  "  If  Walter  Scott  be  the  author  of 
Guy  Mannering,  he  stands  far  higher  in  this 
line  than  in  his  former  walk."  One  of  these 
verdicts  has  been  ratified  by  time,  but  who 
could  suppose  that  Julia  Mannering  and  honest 
Dandy  Dinmont  would  ever  have  whispered 
such  different  messages  into  listening  ears  ! 

And  it  is  precisely  because  of  the  indepen 
dence  assumed  by  books,  that  we  have  need  to, 
cherish  our  own  independence  in  return.  They 


26  OUR   FRIENDS,    THE   BOOKS 

will  not  all  be  our  friends,  and  not  one  of  them 
will  give  itself  freely  to  us  at  the  dictation  of 
a  peremptory  critic.  Hazlitt  says  nobly  of  a 
few  great  writers,  notably  Milton  and  Burke, 
that  "  to  have  lived  in  the  cultivation  of  an  in 
timacy  with  such  works,  and  to  have  familiarly 
relished  such  names,  is  not  to  have  lived  in 
vain."  This  is  true,  yet  if  we  must  seek  for 
companionship  in  less  august  circles,  there  are 
many  milder  lights  who  shine  with  a  steady 
radiance.  It  is  not  the  privilege  of  every  one 
to  love  so  great  a  prose  writer  as  Burke,  so 
great  a  poet  as  Milton.  "  An  appreciation  of 
Paradise  Lost"  says  Mr.  Mark  Pattison,  "is 
the  reward  of  exquisite  scholarship;"  and  the 
number  of  exquisite  scholars  is  never  very 
large.  To  march  up  to  an  author  as  to  the 
cannon's  mouth  is  at  best  but  unprofitable  her 
oism.  To  take  our  pleasures  dutifully  is  the 
least  likely  way  to  enjoy  them.  The  laws  of 
Crete,  it  is  said,  were  set  to  music,  and  sung 
as  alluringly  as  possible  after  dinner;  but  I 
doubt  if  they  afforded  a  really  popular  pastime. 
The  well-fed  guests  who  listened  to  such  dec- 


OUR    FRIENDS,    THE    BOOKS  27 

orous  chants  applauded  them  probably  from 
the  standpoint  of  citizenship,  rather  than  from 
any  undisguised  sentiment  of  enjoyment,  and 
a  few  degenerate  souls  must  have  sighed  occa 
sionally  over  the  joys  of  a  rousing  and  unseem 
ly  chorus.     We  of  to-day  are  so  rich  in  laws, 
so  amply  disciplined  at  every  turn,   that  we 
have  no  need  to  be  reminded  at  dinner  of  our 
obligations.      A    kind-hearted   English    critic 
once  said  that  reading  was  not  a  duty,  and 
had  therefore  no  business  to  be  made  disagree 
able;    and  that  no  man  was  under  any  obliga 
tion  to  read  what  another  man  wrote.     This  is 
an  old-fashioned  point  of  view,  which  has  lost 
favor  of  late  years,  but  which  is   not  without 
compensations  of  its  own.     If  the  office  of  lit 
erature  be  to  make  glad  our  lives,  how  shall  we 
seek  the  joy  in  store  for  us  save  by  following 
Hazlitt's  simple  suggestion,  and  reading  "with 
all  the  satisfaction  in  our  power  "  ?     And  how 
shall  we  insure  this  satisfaction,  save  by  ignor 
ing  the  restrictions  imposed  upon  us,  and  cul 
tivating,  as  far  as  we  can,  a  sincere  and  pleas 
urable  intercourse  with  our  friends,  the  books  ? 


TRIALS  OF  A  PUBLISHER 

T  N  reading  the  recently  published  Memoirs 
•*-  and  Correspondence  of  John  Murray,  a 
very  interesting  and  valuable  piece  of  biog 
raphy —  albeit  somewhat  lengthy  for  these 
hurried  days — we  are  forcibly  impressed  with 
one  surprising  truth  which  we  were  far  from 
suspecting  in  our  ignorance — namely,  that  the 
publisher's  life,  like  the  policeman's,  is  not  a 
happy  one,  but  rilled  to  the  brim  with  vexa 
tions  peculiarly  his  own.  It  was  as  much  the 
fashion  in  Murray's  time  as  it  is  in  ours  to  be 
wail  the  hard  fate  of  down-trodden  authors, 
and  to  hint  that  he  who  prints  the  book  ab 
sorbs  the  praise  and  profit  which  belong  in 
justice  to  him  who  writes  it.  In  fact,  that 
trenchant  and  time-honored  jest,  "Now  Barab- 
bas  was  a  publisher,"  dates  from  this  halcyon 
period  when  Marmion  was  sold  for  a  thousand 
guineas,  and  the  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  2Q 

for  nearly  twice  that  sum.  Murray  himself 
possessed  such  influence  in  the  literary  world 
that  the  battle  with  the  public  was  thought  to 
be  half  won  when  a  book  appeared  armed  with 
the  sanction  of  his  name.  He  was  a  man  of 
wealth,  too,  of  social  standing,  of  severe  and 
fastidious  tastes;  exactly  fitted  by  circum 
stances,  if  not  by  nature,  to  play  the  autocratic 
role  popularly  assigned  to  all  his  craft,  to  crush 
the  aspiring  poet  in  the  dust,  to  freeze  the  bud 
ding  genius  who  sought  assistance  at  his  hands, 
to  override  with  haughty  arrogance  the  wan 
and  needy  scholar  who  waited  at  his  door. 
Instead  of  this,  we  see  him  enduring  with 
lamblike  gentleness  an  amount  of  provocation 
which  would  have  hallowed  a  mediaeval  saint, 
and  which  seems  to  our  undisciplined  spirits 
as  wantonly  exasperating  and  malign. 

In  the  first  place,  his  Scotch  allies,  Con 
stable  and  the  ever-sanguine  James  Ballan- 
tyne,  appeared  to  have  looked  upon  the  Eng 
lish  firm  as  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  wealth, 
from  which  they  could,  when  convenient, 
draw  whatever  they  required.  Ballantyne, 


30  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

especially,  required  so  much,  and  required  that 
much  so  often,  that  Murray  was  obliged  to 
sever  a  connection  too  costly  for  his  purse. 
Then  his  partial  ownership  of  Blackwood's 
Magazine  was  for  years  a  thorn  in  his  flesh, 
and  there  is  something  truly  pathetic  in  his 
miserable  attempts  to  modify  the  personalities 
of  that  utterly  irrepressible  journal.  "  In  the 
name  of  God,"  he  writes  vehemently  to  Wil 
liam  Blackwood,  "why  do  you  seem  to  think 
it  necessary  that  each  number  must  give  pain 
to  some  one  ?  "  Even  the  Quarterly,  his  own 
literary  offspring,  and  the  pride  and  glory  of 
his  heart,  was  at  times  but  a  fractious  child, 
and  cost  him,  after  the  fashion  of  children, 
many  sleepless  nights.  Gifford,  the  editor, 
was  incurably  unbusinesslike  in  his  habits, 
and  never  could  understand  why  subscribers 
should  complain  and  raise  a  row  because  the 
magazine  chanced  to  be  a  month  or  six  weeks 
late.  It  was  sure  to  appear  some  time,  and 
they  had  all  the  pleasure  of  anticipation.  It 
was  a  point  of  honor  with  him,  also,  to  con 
ceal  the  names  of  his  contributors,  so  that 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  31 

when  offence  was  given  to  anybody — which 
was  pretty  nearly  always — the  aggrieved  per 
son  immediately  attacked  Murray  in  return. 
There  are  hosts  of  letters  in  these  volumes 
from  indignant  authors  who  express  them 
selves  with  true  British  candor  because  the 
Quarterly  has  assailed  their  books,  or  their 
friends'  books,  or  their  friends'  friends'  books, 
or  their  pet  politicians,  or  their  most  cherished 
political  schemes.  There  are  hosts  of  other 
letters  which  merely  record  a  distinctly  un 
favorable  opinion  of  the  magazine's  literary 
qualities,  and  which  lament  with  pitiless 
sincerity  that  the  last  number  hardly  contained 
a  single  readable  article. 

All  these  annoyances,  however,  prickly 
though  they  appear,  are  but  trifles  in  compari 
son  with  the  extraordinary  demands  made 
upon  Murray  as  a  publisher.  Impecunious 
playwrights,  like  poor  Charles  Maturin,  pelt 
him  with  unsalable  dramas  and  heartrending 
appeals  for  help.  Impecunious  essayists,  like 
Charles  Marsh,  send  papers  to  the  Quarterly, 
and  —  before  they  are  read — request  fifteen 


32  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

pounds,  "  as  money  on  manuscript  deposited." 
Impecunious  patriots,  like  Foscolo  —  that 
bright  particular  star  of  sentimental  Liberals 
— demand  loans  of  a  thousand  pounds,  to  be 
repaid  with  literary  work.  Impecunious  poets, 
like  James  Hogg,  borrow  fifty  pounds  with  the 
lofty  patronage  of  sovereigns.  It  is  very  amus 
ing  to  note  the  tone  assumed  by  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd  in  his  intercourse  with  a  man  of 
Murray's  influence  and  position.  When  he  is 
in  a  good  humor,  that  is,  when  he  has  negotiat 
ed  a  successful  loan,  he  writes  in  this  generous 
fashion:  "Though  I  have  heard  some  bitter 
things  against  you,  I  never  met  with  any  man 
whatever  who,  on  so  slight  an  acquaintance, 
has  behaved  to  me  so  much  like  a  gentleman." 
Or  again,  "  You  may  be  misled,  and  you  may 
be  mistaken,  my  dear  Murray,  but  as  long  as 
you  tell  me  the  simple  truth  as  plainly,  you 
and  I  will  be  friends."  If  things  go  haltingly, 
however,  and  there  is  a  delay  in  forwarding 
cheques,  this  magnificent  condescension  sharp 
ens  into  angry  protest.  "  What  the  deuce," 
he  writes  vehemently,  "have  you  made  of  my 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  33 

excellent  poem,*  that  you  are  never  publish 
ing  it,  while  I  am  starving  for  money,  and  cannot 
even  afford  a  Christmas  goose  to  my  friends  ? " 
When  a  new  edition  of  The  Queen's  Wake  was   : 
printed  in  Edinburgh,  a  very  handsome  quarto  j 
selling  for  a  guinea — which    seems  a  heart 
breaking  price — Murray  with  his  usual  gener 
osity  subscribed  for  twenty-five  copies;  where 
upon  we  find  Hogg  promptly  acknowledging 
this  munificence  by  begging  him  to  persuade 
others  to  do  likewise.     "  You    must  make  a 
long  pull  and  a  strong  pull  in  London  for  sub 
scriptions, "he  writes,  with  enviable  composure, 
"  as  you    and    Mr.    Rogers   are  the   principal 
men  I  have  to  rely  on."     There  is  something 
very  tranquillizing  in  the  gentle  art  of  shift 
ing  one's  burdens  to  other  shoulders.     Genius 
flourishes  like  the  mountain  oak  when  it  can 
strike  root  in  the  money-boxes  of  less  gifted 
friends. 

If  tact  and  patience  were  both  required  in 
soothing  Hogg's  petulant  vanity  and  in  pro-  £ 
viding  for  his  extravagant  habits,  the  task  be- 

*  «  The  Pilgrims  of  the  Sun." 


34  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

came  harder  and  more  thankless  when  Leigh 
Hunt  presented  himself  in  the  field.  I  can 
imagine  few  things  more  delightful  than  to 
have  had  money  transactions  with  a  person  of 
Leigh  Hunt's  peculiar  and  highly  original 
methods.  He  was  a  kind  of  literary  Oliver, 
crying  perpetually  for  more.  When  the 
Story  of  Rimini  was  still  uncompleted,  it  was 
offered  by  the  poet  to  Murray  with  this 
diverting  assurance  : 

"  Booksellers  tell  me  I  ought  not  to  ask  less 
than  four  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  (which  is  a 
sum  I  happen  to  want  just  now),  and  my 
friends,  not  in  the  trade,  say  I  ought  not  to 
ask  less  than  five  hundred,  with  such  a  trifling 
acknowledgment  upon  the  various  editions, 
after  the  second  and  third,  as  shall  enable  me 
to  say  that  I  am  still  profiting  by  it." 

Murray,  evidently  disconcerted  by  the  cool 
ness  of  this  proposal,  writes  back  with  veiled 
and  courteous  sarcasm,  suggesting  that  the 
manuscript  be  offered  upon  these  terms  to 
other  publishers.  Should  they  refuse  to  ac 
cept  it,  he  is  willing  to  print  a  small  edition  at 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  35 

his  own  expense,  and  divide  the  profits  with 
the  author,  to  whom  the  copyright  shall  be  re 
stored.  Rather  to  our  amazement,  and  per 
haps  to  Murray's,  Leigh  Hunt  closes  im 
mediately  with  this  very  moderate  offer;  and 
as  soon  as  the  book  appears  he  writes  again, 
begging  to  have  part  of  the  money  advanced 
to  him.  Murray's  reply  is  eminently  char 
acteristic  of  the  man.  The  poem,  he  says,  is 
selling  well.  Should  the  entire  edition  be  ex 
hausted,  which  he  doubts  not  will  be  the  case, 
the  poet's  share  of  the  profits  would  amount  to 
exactly  forty-eight  pounds  and  ten  shillings. 
He  takes  pleasure  in  enclosing  a  cheque  foi- 
fifty  pounds,  and  only  asks  that  a  receipt  may 
be  sent  him  for  the  same.  The  receipt  is  not 
sent  until  ten  days  are  past,  when  it  arrives 
accompanied  by  a  long  letter  in  which  Leigh 
Hunt  enlarges  upon  his  pecuniary  troubles — 
concerning  these  he  is  as  explicit  as  Micawber 
— and  proposes  that  Murray  should  now  pur 
chase  the  copyright  of  Rimini  for  four  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds,  and  let  him  have  the  money 
at  once.  Unhappily,  the  answer  to  this  admi- 


36  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

rable  piece  of  negotiation  has  been  lost,  but  it 
was  evidently  too  patronizing  to  please  the 
poet,  who  was  as  sensitive  as  he  was  insatiable. 
The  next  letter  we  have  from  him  sharply  re 
minds  Murray  that  he  is  not  seeking  for  as 
sistance,  but  merely  endeavoring  to  transact  a 
piece  of  business  which  would  involve  no  pos 
sible  risk  for  any  one.  Finally  the  poor  har 
assed  publisher  persuades  him  with  soft  words 
to  sell  the  copyright  of  Rimini  to  another 
firm,  and  there  must  have  been  a  deep  breath 
of  relief  drawn  in  Albemarle  Street  when  the 
matter  was  at  last  adjusted,  and  the  trouble 
some  correspondence  ceased.  In  fact,  there 
is  a  letter  from  Blackwood  frankly  congratu 
lating  Murray  on  his  escape.  "I  dare  say  you 
are  well  rid  of  Leigh  Hunt,"  writes  this  ex 
perienced  ally  to  his  fellow-sufferer;  "  and  I 
really  pity  you  when  I  think  of  the  difficulty 
you  must  often  have  in  managing  with  authors, 
and  particularly  with  the  friends  of  authors 
whom  you  wish  to  oblige." 

One  of  those  whom  Murray  wished  eagerly 
to  oblige,  until  he  found  the  task  too  costly  for 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  37 

his  purse,  was  Madame  de  Stael.  For  the 
English  and  French  editions  of  her  work  on 
Germany  he  paid  no  less  than  fifteen  hundred 
pounds,  and  speedily  found  himself  a  loser  by 
the  transaction.  Gilford,  who  had  scant  liking 
for  the  celebrated  "  hurricane  in  petticoats," 
writes  to  him  on  the  occasion  with  gentle 
malice,  and  a  too  evident  amusement  at  his 
discomfiture:  "  I  can  venture  to  assure  you 
that  the  hope  of  keeping  her  from  the  press  is 
quite  vain.  The  family  of  QEdipus  were  not 
more  haunted  and  goaded  by  the  Furies  than 
the  Neckers,  father,  mother,  and  daughter, 
have  always  been  by  the  demon  of  publication. 
Madame  de  Stael  will  therefore  write  and  print 
without  intermission."  Not  without  being  well 
paid,  however ;  for  three  years  later  we  find 
the  Baron  de  Stael  writing  to  Murray  in  hi£ 
mother's  taame,  and  demanding  four  thousand 
pounds  for  her  three-volume  work,  Des  Causes 
et  des  Effets  de  la  Revolution  Frangaise.  "  My 
mother  insists  upon  four  thousand  pounds, 
besides  a  credit  in  books  for  every  new  edi 
tion,"  says  this  imperative  gentleman,  some- 


38  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

what  in  the  manner  of  a  footpad  ;  to  whom 
Murray  responds  with  much  tranquillity, 
thanking  him  for  his  "  obliging  letter,"  and 
intimating  that  he  and  Longman  together  are 
willing  to  pay  one  thousand  pounds  for  the 
first  French  and  English  editions,  and  three 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  for  the  second. 
Madame  de  Stael  indignantly  repudiates  this 
offer,  declaring  that  twenty -five  hundred 
pounds  is  the  least  she  can  think  of  taking, 
and  that  the  book  will  be  a  bargain  at  such  a 
price.  Murray,  who  knows  something  about 
bargains,  and  who  has  been  rendered  more 
cautious  than  usual  by  his  experience  with 
L'Allemagne,  declines  such  palpable  risks,  and 
excuses  himself  from  further  negotiations.  La 
Revolution  Frangaise  did  not  appear  until  after 
Madame  de  Stael's  death,  when  it  was  pub 
lished  by  Messrs.  Baldwin  and  Cradock,  and 
proved  a  lamentable  failure,  people  having 
begun  by  that  time  to  grow  a  trifle  weary  of 
such  a  thrice-told  tale. 

The  most  amusing  and  at  the  same  time  most 
pathetic  bit  of  correspondence    in    these  two 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  39 

big  volumes  relates  to  a  translation  of  Faust, 
which  Coleridge,  so  eminently  qualified  for  the 
task,  offers  to  write  for  Murray.  He  unfolds 
his  views  in  a  letter  as  long  as  an  average 
essay — or  what  we  call  an  essay  in  these  de 
generate  days — evincing  on  every  page  a  su 
perb  contempt  for  the  reading  public,  which 
was  expected  to  buy  the  book,  a  painful  re 
luctance  to  "attempt  anything  of  a  literary 
nature  with  any  motive  of  pecuniary  advan 
tage  " — which  does  not  prevent  him  from  doing 
some  elaborate  bargaining  later  on — and  a 
tendency  to  plunge  into  intellectual  abstrac 
tions,  calculated  to  chill  the  heart  of  the  stout 
est  publisher  in  Christendom.  There  is  one 
incomparable  paragraph  which  Coleridge  alone 
could  have  written,  and  a  portion  of  which — 
only  a  portion — I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting : 
"  Any  work  in  Poetry  strikes  me  with  more 
than  common  awe,  as  proposed  for  realization 
by  myself,  because  from  long  habits  of  medita 
tion  on  language,  as  the  symbolic  medium  of 
the  connection  of  Thought  with  Thought  as 
affected  and  modified  by  Passion  and  Emotion, 


4O  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

I  should  spend  days  in  avoiding  what  I  deemed 
faults,  though  with  the  full  foreknowledge  that 
their  admission  would  not  have  offended  three 
of  all  my  readers,  and  might  perhaps  be  deemed 
beauties  by  three  hundred — if  so  many  there 
were  ;  and  this  not  out  of  any  respect  for  the 
public  (i.e.,  the  persons  who  might  happen  to 
purchase  and  look  over  the  book)  but  from  a 
hobby-horsical,  superstitious  regard  to  my  own 
feelings  and  sense  of  Duty.  Language  is  the 
sacred  Fire  in  this  Temple  of  Humanity,  and 
the  Muses  are  its  especial  and  vestal  priestesses. 
Though  I  cannot  prevent  the  vile  drugs  and 
counterfeit  Frankincense  which  render  its 
flames  at  once  pitchy,  glowing,  and  unsteady, 
I  would  yet  be  no  voluntary  accomplice  in  the 
Sacrilege.  With  the  commencement  of  a  Pub- 
Aic,  commences  the  degradation  of  the  Good 
and  the  Beautiful — both  fade  and  retire  be 
fore  the  accidentally  Agreeable.  Othello  be 
comes  a  hollow  lip-worship ;  and  the  Castle 
Spectre,  or  any  more  peccant  thing  of  Froth, 
Noise,  and  Impermanence,  that  may  have  over- 
billowed  it  on  the  restless  sea  of  curiosity,  is 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  4! 

the  true  Prayer  of  the  Praise  and  Admira 
tion." 

Fancy  the  feelings  of  a  poor  publisher  as 
sailed  with  this  raging  torrent  of  words  !  Mur 
ray,  stemming  the  tide  as  best  he  can,  replies 
in  a  short,  businesslike  note,  proposing  terms 
— not  very  liberal  ones — for  the  desired  trans 
lation.  Whereupon  Coleridge  writes  a  second 
letter,  actually  longer  than  the  first,  intimating 
that  a  hundred  pounds  is  but  scant  remu 
neration  for  such  a  piece  of  work,  "  executed 
as  alone  I  can  or  dare  do  it — that  is,  to  the 
utmost  of  my  power  ;  for  which  the  intolerable 
Pain,  nay  the  far  greater  Toil  and  Effort  of 
doing  otherwise,  is  a  far  safer  Pledge  than  any 
solicitude  on  my  part  concerning  the  approba 
tion  of  the  Public." 

Finally,  the  undertaking  was  abandoned, 
and  the  English-speaking  world  lost  its  single 
chance  of  having  Faust  adequately  trans 
lated  ;  lost  it,  I  truly  believe,  through  the  re 
luctance  of  even  a  patient  man  to  stomach  any 
further  correspondence. 

Trials  of  a  very  different  order  poured  in  on 


42  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

Murray  through  his  connection  with  Lord 
Byron,  an  honor  which  was  not  altogether 
without  thorns.  People  who  thought  Byron's 
poetry  immoral  wrote  frankly  to  Murray  to  say 
so.  People  who  did  not  think  Byron's  poetry 
immoral  wrote  quite  as  frankly  to  complain  of 
those  who  did.  His  noble  lordship  himself 
was  at  times  both  petulant  and  exacting,  and 
there  is  a  ring  of  true  dignity  in  the  following 
remonstrance  offered  by  the  publisher  to  the 
peer,  by  "  Mr.  Bookseller  Murray,"  as  Napier 
contemptuously  calls  him,  to  the  poet  whose 
good  qualities  he  was  so  quick  to  understand  : 
"I  assure  you,"  he  writes,  "that  I  take  no 
umbrage  at  irritability  which  will  occasionally 
burst  from  a  mind  like  yours  ;  but  I  sometimes 
feel  a  deep  regret  that  in  our  pretty  long  inter 
course  I  appear  to  have  failed  to  show  that  a 
man  in  my  situation  may  possess  the  feelings 
and  principles  of  a  gentleman.  Most  certainly 
do  I  think  that,  from  personal  attachment,  I 
could  venture  as  much  in  any  shape  for  your 
service  as  any  of  those  who  have  the  good  for 
tune  to  be  ranked  amongst  your  friends." 


TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER  43 

In  fact,  the  friends  of  authors  were  too  often, 
as  Blackwood  hinted,  the  sources  of  Murray's 
severest  trials.  Friends  are  obliging  creatures 
in  their  way,  and  always  ready  to  give  with 
lavish  hearts  their  wealth  of  criticism  and  opin 
ion,  There  is  a  delightful  letter  from  the  Rev. 
H.  H.  Milman,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  offering  to 
Murray  his  sadly  unreadable  poem  Belshaz- 
zar,  with  this  timely  intimation:  "  I  give  you 
fair  warning  that  all  the  friends  who  have 
hitherto  seen  it  assure  me  that  I  shall  not  do 
myself  justice  unless  I  demand  a  very  high 
price  for  it."  Murray,  in  reply,  hints  as  ur 
banely  as  he  can  that,  as  it  is  he  and  not  Mr. 
Milman's  friends  who  is  to  pay  the  price,  he 
cannot  accept  their  judgment  in  the  matter  as 
final ;  he  is  compelled  to  take  into  considera 
tion  his  own  chances  of  profit.  Throughout 
all  his  correspondence  we  note  this  tone  of 
careful  self-repression,  of  patient  and  courte 
ous  kindness.  Now  and  then  only,  particularly 
trying  letters  appear  to  have  been  left  unan 
swered,  as  though  the  limits  of  even  his  endur 
ance  had  been  reached.  When  we  remember 


44  TRIALS   OF   A   PUBLISHER 

that  the  Quarterly  was  the  cherished  idol  of 
his  life,  and  that  his  pride  and  delight  in  it 
knew  no  bounds,  we  can  dimly  appreciate  his 
feelings  on  receiving  the  following  lines  from 
Southey,  whose  principal  income  for  years  had 
been  derived  from  the  magazine's  most  liberal 
and  open-handed  payments.  "  It  is  a  great 
price,"  writes  the  author  of  Thalaba,  who  has 
just  pocketed  a  comfortable  sum,  "and  it  is 
very  convenient  for  me  to  receive  it.  But  I 
will  tell  you,  with  that  frankness  which  you 
have  always  found  in  my  correspondence  and 
conversation,  that  I  must  suspect  my  time 
might  be  more  profitably  employed  (as  I  am 
sure  it  might  be  more  worthily)  than  in  writing 
for  your  journal,  even  at  that  price." 

I  am  not  wont  to  peer  too  closely  into  the 
secrets  of  the  human  heart,  but  I  would  like  to 
know  exactly  how  Murray  felt  when  he  read 
that  letter.  "  Let  me  at  least  be  eaten  by  a 
lion!"  says  Epictetus.  "Let  me  at  least  be 
insulted  by  a  genius !  "  might  well  have  been 
the  publisher's  lament. 


THE  OPPRESSION  OF  NOTES 

r  I  ^HAT  innocent  nondescript,  the  average 
••*•  reader,  is  suffering  very  sorely  at  the 
present  day  from  what  might  be  justly  called 
the  oppression  or  tyranny  of  notes.  I  hear, 
indeed,  from  time  to  time,  bitter  complaints  of 
editorial  inaccuracy,  of  the  unscholarly  treat 
ment  of  quite  forgotten  masterpieces  by  the 
industrious  gentlemen  who  seek  to  reintroduce 
them  to  the  public;  but  such  inaccuracy  can 
wound  only  the  limited  number  who  know 
more  than  the  editor,  and  who  in  their  secret 
souls  are  not  sorry  to  prove  him  wrong.  The 
average  reader,  even  though  he  hold  himself 
to  be  of  moderate  intelligence,  is  happily  ig 
norant  of  such  fine  shadings,  and  only  asks 
that  he  may  enjoy  his  books  in  a  moderately 
intelligent  manner;  that  he  may  be  helped 
over  hedges  and  ditches,  and  allowed  to  ram 
ble  unmolested  where  the  ground  seems  toler*- 

45 


46  THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES 

ably  smooth.  This  is  precisely  the  privilege, 
however,  which  a  too  liberal  editor  is  disin 
clined  to  allow.  He  will  build  you  a  bridge 
over  a  raindrop,  put  ladders  up  a  pebble,  and 
encompass  you  on  every  side  with  ingenious 
alpenstocks  and  climbing-irons;  yet  when, 
perchance,  you  stumble  and  hold  out  a  hand 
for  help,  behold,  he  is  never  there  to  grasp  it. 
He  merely  refers  you,  with  some  coldness,  to 
a  remote  authority  who  will  give  you  the  assist 
ance  you  require  when  you  have  reached  the 
end  of  your  journey.  Mr.  Ritchie,  for  exam 
ple,  who  has  recently  edited  a  volume  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle's  early  letters,  expects  you  patiently 
to  search  for  the  information  you(want  in  Mr. 
Froude's  pages,  which  is  always  a  disheartening 
thing  to  be  asked  to  do.  Yet  when  Jeanie 
Welsh,  writing  cheerfully  of  an  inconstant 
lover,  says,  "Mais  riimporte  !  It  is  only  one 
more  Spanish  castle  demolished;  another  may 
start  up  like  a  mushroom  in  its  place ; "  an  ex 
planatory  note  carefully  reveals  to  you  that 
"Spanish  castle"  really  means  "chateau  en 
Espagne" — a  circumstance  which  even  Mac- 


THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES  47 

aulay's  schoolboy  would  probably  have  deci 
phered  for  himself. 

If  it  be  hard  on  the  average  reader  to  be  re 
ferred  chillingly  to  modern  writers  who  are  at 
least  within  approachable  distance,  it  is  harder 
still  to  be  requested  to  look  up  classical  au 
thorities.  If  it  be  hard  to  be  told  occasionally 
by  that  prince  of  good  editors,  Mr.  Alfred 
Ainger,  to  please  turn  elsewhere  for  the  little 
bits  of  information  which  we  think  he  might 
give  us  about  Charles  Lamb,  it  is  harder  still 
to  have  Mr.  Wright  refuse  to  translate  for  us 
Edward  Fitzgerald's  infrequent  lapses  into 
Greek.  What  is  the  use  of  saying  in  a  note 
"v.  9"  when  Fitzgerald  quotes  Herodotus?  If 
I  can  read  the  quotation  for  myself,  I  have  no 
need  to  hunt  up  v.  9;  and  if  I  can't,  v.  9  is  of 
no  use  to  me  when  found.  Even  "Hor.  Od.  I. 
4,  14,  15,"  is  not  altogether  satisfactory  to  the 
indifferent  scholar,  for  whom  Fitzgerald  him- 
self  had  such  generous  sympathy,  and  for 
whom  his  translations  were  avowedly  under- 
taken. 

These  are  merely  cases,  however,  in  which 


48  THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES 

notes  refuse  to  be  helpful;  they  are  apt  to  be 
come  absolutely  oppressive  when  accompany 
ing  older  writers.  A  few  years  ago  I  bought 
a  little  English  edition  of  the  Religio  Medici, 
to  which  are  added  the  Letter  to  a  Friend  and 
Christian  Morals.  The  book  is  one  of  Mac- 
millan's  Golden  Treasury  Series,  and  is  edited 
by  Mr.  W.  A.  Greenhill,  who  opens  with  an 
"  Editor's  Preface,"  eighteen  pages  long,  and 
fairly  bristling  with  knowledge  points.  After 
this  come  a"Chronological  Table  of  Dates, Con 
nected  with  Sir  Thomas  Browne,"  two  pages 
long;  "Note  on  the  Discovery  of  the  Remains 
of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  1840,"  two  pages; 
"  Brief  Notices  of  Former  Editors  of  the  Religio 
Medici^  four  pages;  "  List  of  Editions  of  Religio 
Medici"  thirteen  pages;  "Collations  of  Some 
Old  Editions  of  Religio  Medici"  three  pages; 
"  List  of  Editions  of  Letter  to  a  Friend  and 
Christian  Morals"  five  pages;  '•''Addenda  et 
Corrigenda"  one  page.  Having  thus  laborious 
ly  cleared  the  way, we  are  at  last  gladdened  by  a 
sight  of  the  Religio  Medici  itself,  which,  together 
with  the  Letter  and  Christian  Morals,  occupies 


THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES  49 

two  hundred  and  thirty  pages.  Then,  following 
close,  like  the  mighty  luggage  of  a  Persian  army, 
come  an  array  of  "  Notes  Critical  and  Explana 
tory,"  eighty-eight  pages;  and  an  Index  just 
sixty-nine  pages  long.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that 
two  hundred  and  five  pages  of  editorial  work 
are  deemed  necessary  to  elucidate  two  hundred 
and  thirty  pages  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  which 
seems  like  an  intolerable  deal  of  sack  for  such 
a  quantity  of  bread.  To  compress  all  this  into 
a  small  volume  requires  c,lose  printing  and 
flimsy  paper,  and  the  ungrateful  reader  thinks 
in  his  hardened  heart  that  he  would  rather  a 
little  more  space  had  been  given  to  the  author, 
and  a  little  less  to  the  editor,  who  is  for  most 
of  us,  after  all,  a  secondary  consideration.  It 
is  also  manifestly  impossible,  with  such  a  num 
ber  of  notes,  even  to  refer  to  them  at  the  bot 
tom  of  the  page;  yet  without  this  guiding  finger 
they  are  often  practically  useless.  We  are  not 
as  a  rule  aware,  when  we  read,  what  informa 
tion  we  lack,  and  it  becomes  a  grievous  duty 
to  examine  every  few  minutes  and  see  if  we 
ought  not  to  be  finding  something  out. 


$O  THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES 

A  glance  at  the  notes  themselves  is  very 
discouraging: 

"P.  10,  1.  14,  directed,  A  to  E,  G;  direct,  F, 
H  to  L. 

"P.  10,  1.  16,  rectified,  A  to  I  ;  rectifie,  J, 
K,  L. 

*'  P.  10,  1.  28,  consist,  A  to  j;  resist,  K,  L." 

Reading  with  such  helps  as  these  becomes  a 
literary  nightmare: 

"P.  8,  1.  8,  distinguished]  Chapman  (R)  and 
Gardiner  (w)  read  'being  distinguished.' 

"P.  8,  1.  8,  distinguished  not  only]  Wilkin 
(T)  read  'not  only  distinguished.'" 

And  this  is  weirder  still : 

"P.  59,  1.  4,  antimetathesis,  c  to  M;  antana- 
clasis,  A,  B;  transposition  of  words,  N,  O." 

It  may  easily  be  surmised  that  eighty-eight 
pages  of  such  concentrated  and  deadly  erudi 
tion  weigh  very  heavily  on  the  unscholarly 
soul.  We  are  reminded  forcibly  of  the  impa 
tience  manifested  by  Mr.  E.  S.  Dallas,  in  The 
Gay  Science,  over  Person's  notes  on  Euripides, 
from  which  he  had  hoped  so  much  and  gleaned 
so  little;  which  were  all  about  words  and  less 


THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES  51 

than  words — syllables,  letters,  accents,   punc 
tuation. 

"Codex  A  and  Codex  B,  Codex  Cantabrigi- 
ensis  and  Codex  Cottonianus,  were  ransacked 
in  turn  to  show  how  this  noun  should  be  in  the 
dative,  not  in  the  accusative;  how  that  verb 
should  have  the  accent  paroxytone,  not  peris- 
pomenon;  and  how,  by  all  the  rules  of  pros 
ody,  there  should  be  an  iambus,  not  a  spon 
dee,  in  this  place  or  that."  The  lad  who  has 
heard  all  his  college  life  about  the  wonderful 
supplement  to  the  Hecuba  turns  to  it  with 
wistful  eyes,  expecting  to  find  some  subtle  key 
to  Greek  tragedy.  "  Behold,  it  is  a  treatise  on 
certain  Greek  metres.  Its  talk  is  of  caesural 
pauses,  penthemimeral  and  hephthemimeral, 
of  isochronous  feet,  of  enclitics  and  cretic  ter 
minations;  and  the  grand  doctrine  it  promul 
gates  is  expressed  in  the  canon  regarding  the 
pause  which,  from  the  discoverer,  has  been 
named  the  Porsonian — that  when  the  iambic 
trimeter  after  a  word  of  more  than  one  syllable 
has  the  cretic  termination  included  either  in 
one  word  or  in  two,  then  the  fifth  foot  must  be 


52  THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES 

an  iambus.  The  young  student  throws  down 
the  book  thus  prefaced  and  supplemented,  and 
wonders  if  this  be  all  that  giants  of  Porsonian 
height  can  see  or  care  to  speak  about  in  Greek 
literature." 

But  then  be  it  remembered  that  Euripides,  as 
edited  by  Person,  was  intended  for  the  use  of 
scholars,  and  there  exists  an  impression — per 
haps  erroneous — that  this  is  the  sort  of  food  for 
which  scholars  hunger  and  thirst.  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  has,  happily,  not  yet  passed  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  general  reader,  whose  appetite  for 
intellectual  abstraction  and  the  rigors  of  precis 
ion  is  distinctly  moderate,  and  in  whose  behalf 
I  urge  my  plea  to-day. 

After  the  oppressively  erudite  notes  come 
those  which  interpret  trifles  with  painstaking 
fidelity,  and  which  reveal  to  us  the  meaning  of 
quite  familiar  words.  In  Ferrier's  admirable 
edition  of  the  Nodes  Ambrosiance>  for  example, 
we  are  told  with  naive  gravity  that  "  wiselike  " 
means  "judicious,"  that  "glowering"  means 
"  staring,"  that  "  parritch  "  is  "  porridge,"  that 
"  guffaw  "  is  a  "  loud  laugh,"  that  "  douce  "  is 


THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES  53 

"  sedate,"  that  "  gane  "  is  "  gone,"  and  that  "  in 
a  jiffy"  means  "immediately."  But  surely  the 
readers  of  Christopher  North  do  not  require 
information  like  this.  "Douce"  and  "  par- 
ritch"  and  "  guffaw  "  are  not  difficult  words  to 
understand,  and  "in  a  jiffy"  would  seem  to 
come  within  the  intellectual  grasp  of  many  who 
have  not  yet  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  al 
phabet. 

It  may  be,  however,  that  there  are  people 
who  really  like  to  be  instructed  in  this  manner, 
just  as  there  are  people  who  like  to  go  to  lec 
tures  and  to  organ  recitals.  It  may  even  be 
that  a  taste  for  notes,  like  a  taste  for  gin,  or  opi 
um,  or  Dr.  Ibsen's  dramas,  increases  with  what 
it  feeds  on.  In  that  tiny  volume  of  Selected 
Poems  by  Gray  which  Mr.  Gosse  has  edited  for 
the  Clarendon  Press,  there  are  forty-two  pages 
of  notes  to  sixty  pages  of  poetry;  and  while 
some  of  them  are  valuable  and  interesting, 
many  more  seem  strangely  superfluous.  But 
Mr.  Gosse,  who  has  his  finger  on  the  literary 
pulse  of  his  generation,  is  probably  the  last 
man  in  England  to  furnish  information  unless 


54  THE    OPPRESSION  OF   NOTES 

it  is  desired.  He  knows,  better  than  most  pur 
veyors  of  knowledge,  what  it  is  that  readers 
want;  he  is  not  prone  to  waste  his  precious 
minutes;  he  has  a  saving  sense  of  humor;  and 
he  does  not  aspire  to  be  a  lettered  philanthro 
pist  fretting  to  enlighten  mankind.  If,  then,  he 
finds  it  necessary  to  elucidate  that  happy  trifle, 
On  the  Death  of  a  Favorite  Cat,  with  no  less 
than  seven  notes,  which  is  at  the  rate  of  one 
for  every  verse,  it  must  be  that  he  is  filling  an 
expressed  demand;  it  must  be  that  he  is  aware 
that  modern  students  of  Gray — every  one  who 
reads  a  poet  is  a  "  student"  nowadays — like  to 
be  told  by  an  editor  about  Tyrian  purple,  and 
about  Arion's  dolphin,  and  about  the  difference 
between  a  tortoise-shell  and  a  tabby.  As  for 
the  seven  pages  of  notes  that  accompany  the 
Elegy,  they  carry  me  back  in  spirit  to  the  friend 
of  my  childhood,  Miss  Edgeworth's  Rosamond, 
who  was  expected  to  understand  every  word  of 
every  poem  she  studied.  What  a  blessing  Mr. 
Gosse's  notes  would  have  been  to  that  poor, 
dear,  misguided  little  girl,  who  rashly  com 
mitted  the  Elegy  to  memory  because,  in  hon- 


THE    OPPRESSION  OF  NOTES  $5 

est,  childish  fashion,  she  loved  its  pretty  sound  ! 
Who  can  forget  the  pathetic  scene  where  she 
attempts  to  recite  it,  and  has  only  finished  the 
first  line, 

"  The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day," 

when  Godfrey,  whom  I  always  thought,  and 
still  think,  a  very  disagreeable  boy,  interrupts 
her  ruthlessly. 

"  '  What  is  meant  by  the  "  curfew  "  ?  What 
is  meant  by  "tolls"?  What  is  a  "  knell"? 
What  is  meant  by  "  parting  day  "  ? ' 

"  *  Godfrey,  I  cannot  tell  the  meaning  of  ev 
ery  word,  but  I  know  the  general  meaning.  It 
means  that  the  day  is  going,  that  it  is  evening, 
that  it  is  growing  dark.  Now  let  me  go  on.' 

"  '  Go  on,'  said  Godfrey,  '  and  let  us  see  what 
you  will  do  when  you  come  to  "the  boast  of 
heraldry,"  to  "  the  long-drawn  aisle  and  fretted 
vault,"  to  the  "village  Hampden,"  to  "some 
mute  inglorious  Milton,"  and  to  "some  Crom 
well  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood,"  you  who 
have  not  come  to  Cromwell  yet,  in  the  history 
of  England.' " 


56  THE    OPPRESSION  OF   NOTES 

No  wonder  poor  Rosamond  is  disheartened 
and  silenced  by  such  an  array  of  difficulties  in 
her  path.  It  is  comforting  to  know  that  God 
frey  himself  comes  to  grief,  a  little  later,  with 
The  Bard,  and  that  even  the  wise  and  irre 
proachable  Laura  confesses  to  have  been  baf 
fled  by  the  lines, 

"  If  aught  of  oaten  stop  or  pastoral  song 
May  hope,  chaste  eve,  to  soothe  thy  modest  ear." 

"  Oaten  stop"  was  a  mystery,  and  "eve"  she 
thought — and  was  none  the  worse  for  thinking 
it — meant  our  first  great  erring  mother. 

No  such  wholesome  blunders — pleasant  to  re 
call  in  later, weary,  well-instructed  days — would 
be  possible  for  Miss  Edgeworth's  little  people 
if  they  lived  in  our  age  of  pitiless  enlighten 
ment,  when  even  a  book  framed  for  their  es 
pecial  joy,  like  The  Children's  Treasury  of 
English  Song,  bristles  with  marginal  notes. 
Here  Rosamond  would  have  found  an  expla 
nation  of  no  less  than  forty-eight  words  in  the 
Elegy,  and  would  probably  have  understood  it 
a  great  deal  better,  and  loved  it  a  great  deal 


THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES  5/ 

less.  It  is  healthy  and  natural  for  a  child  to  be 
forcibly  attracted  by  what  she  does  not  wholly 
comprehend;  the  music  of  words  appeals  very 
sweetly  to  childish  ears,  and  their  meaning 
comes  later — comes  often  after  the  first  keen 
unconscious  pleasure  is  past.  I  once  knew  a 
tiny  boy  who  so  delighted  in  Byron's  descrip 
tion  of  the  dying  gladiator  that  he  made  me 
read  it  to  him  over,  and  over,  and  over  again. 
He  did  not  know — and  I  never  told  him — what 
a  gladiator  was.  He  did  not  know  that  it  was 
a  statue,  and  not  a  real  man,  described.  He 
had  not  the  faintest  notion  of  what  was  meant 
by  the  Danube,  or  the  "  Dacian  mother,"  or  "  a 
Roman  holiday."  Historically  and  geograph 
ically,  the  boy's  mind  was  a  happy  Iplank. 
There  was  nothing  intelligent  or  sagacious  in 
his  enjoyment;  only  a  blissful  stirring  of  the 
heartstrings  by  reason  of  strong  words,  and 
swinging  verse,  and  his  own  tangle  of  groping 
thoughts.  But  what  child  who  reads  Cowper's 
pretty  remonstrance  to  his  spaniel,  and  the 
spaniel's  neat  reply,  wants  to  be  told  in  a  suc 
cession  of  dismal  notes  that  "  allures"  means 


58  THE    OPPRESSION   OF   NOTES 

"  tempts,"  that  " remedy  "  means  "  cure,"  that 
"killing  time"  means  "  wasting  time,"  that  "  des 
tined  "  means  "  meant  for,"  and  that  "  behest " 
means  "  command  "  ?  Cowper  is  one  of  the  sim 
plest  of  writers,  and  the  little  boys  and  girls 
who  cannot  be  trusted  unarmed  in  his  com 
pany  had  better  confine  their  reading  to  Rob 
inson  Crusoe  in  Words  of  One  Syllable,  or  to 
the  veracious  pages  of  Mother  Goose.  But 
perhaps  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  even 
Mother  Goose  will  afford  food  for  instruction 
and  a  fresh  industry  for  authors,  and  when  the 
hapless  children  of  the  dawning  century  will 
be  confronted  with  a  dozen  highly  abbreviated 
and  unintelligible  notes  referring  them  to  some 
Icelandic  Saga  or  remote  Indian  epic  for  the 
bloody  history  of  the  Three  Blind  Mice. 


CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS 

A  GREAT  many  years  ago,  when  I  was  a 
•**•  little  girl,  I  used  to  know  a  dear,  placid, 
sunny-tempered  old  lady  who  was  stone-deaf 
and  an  insatiable  novel-reader.  She  always 
came  to  our  house  bearing  a  black  bag  which 
held  her  jointed  ear-trumpet,  and  she  always 
left  it  with  a  borrowed  novel  under  her  arm. 
As  she  had  reached  that  comfortable  period  of 
life  when  a  book  is  as  easily  forgotten  as  read, 
our  slender  library  supplied  all  her  demands, 
on  the  same  principle  of  timely  reappearance 
which  makes  an  imposing  stage  army  out  of 
two  dozen  elusive  supernumeraries.  She  had 
a  theory  of  selection  all  her  own,  and  to  which 
she  implicitly  trusted.  She  glanced  over  a 
story  very  rapidly,  and  if  it  had  too  many  solid, 
page-long  paragraphs — reflections,  descrip 
tions,  etc. — she  put  it  sadly  but  steadfastly 
aside.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  well  broken 

59 


60  CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS 

up  into  conversations,  which  always  impart  an 
air  of  sprightliness  to  a  book,  she  said  she  was 
sure  she  would  like  it,  and  carried  it  off  in  tri 
umph. 

Those  were  not  days,  be  it  remembered, 
when  people  wrote  fiction  for  the  sake  of  in 
troducing  discussions.  There  still  lingered  in 
the  novelist's  mind  the  time-worn  heresy  that 
he  had  a  story  to  tell,  and  that  his  people  must 
act  as  well  as  talk.  The  plot — delightful  and 
obsolete  word  ! — was  then  in  good  repute,  and 
conversation  was  mainly  useful  in  helping  on 
the  tale,  in  providing  copious  love  scenes,  and, 
with  really  good  novelists,  in  illustrating  and 
developing  character.  Thomas  Love  Peacock's 
inimitable  dialogues  had  indeed  been  long 
given  to  the  world;  but  quiet  people  of  restrict 
ed  cultivation  knew  nothing  of  them,  and  would 
have  found  it  difficult  to  realize  their  loss.  I 
can  hardly  fancy  our  dear  old  friend  reading 
and  enjoying  the  delicious  war  of  words  in 
Crotchet  Castle,  and  I  should  be  grieved  to 
think  of  her  suddenly  confronted  with  those 
scraps  of  sententious  wisdom,  in  which  its  au- 


CONVERSATION    IN   NOVELS  6l 

thor  took  a  truly  impish  and  reprehensible  de 
light.  Such  a  sentiment  as  "  Men  have  been 
found  very  easily  permutable  into  ites  and 
onians,  avians  and  arians,"  might  have  sorely 
puzzled  her  benign  and  tranquil  soul. 

Yet  no  one  can  accuse  Peacock  of  writing 
his  novels  in  order  to  express  his  own  personal 
convictions.  The  fact  is  that,  after  reading 
them,  we  are  often  very  much  in  the  dark  as 
to  what  his  convictions  were.  We  know  he 
loved  old  things  better  than  new  ones,  and 
wine  better  than  water;  and  that  is  about  as 
far  as  we  can  follow  him  with  security.  "  The 
intimate  friends  of  Mr.  Peacock  may  have  un 
derstood  his  political  sentiments,"  says  Lord 
Houghton  disconsolately,  "  but  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  discover  them  from  his  work."  His 
people  simply  talk  in  character,  sometimes 
tiresomely,  sometimes  with  unapproachable 
keenness  and  humor,  and  the  scope  of  his  sto 
ries  hardly  permits  any  near  approach  to  the 
fine  gradations,  the  endless  variety,  of  life. 
Mr.  Chainmail  never  opens  his  lips  save  in 
praise  of  feudalism.  Mr.  Mac  Quedy  discusses 


62  CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS 

political  economy  only.  Even  the  witty  Dr. 
Folliott,  "  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest,"  seldom  gets 
beyond  the  dual  delights  of  Greek  and  dining. 
It  is  all  vastly  piquant  and  entertaining,  but  it 
is  leagues  away  from  the  casual  conversation, 
the  little  leisurely,  veracious  gossip  in  which 
Jane  Austen  reveals  to  us  with  merciless  dis 
tinctness  the  secret  springs  that  move  a  human 
heart.  She  has  scant  need  to  describe  her 
characters,  and  she  seldom  takes  that  trouble. 
They  betray  themselves  at  every  word,  and 
stand  convicted  on  their  own  evidence.  We 
are  not  warned  in  advance  against  Isabella 
Thorpe.  We  meet  her  precisely  as  Catherine 
meets  her  in  the  Pump-room  at  Bath,  where 
the  young  lady  speedily  opens  her  lips,  and 
acquaints  us  in  the  most  vivacious  manner  with 
her  own  callous  folly  and  selfishness.  Every 
syllable  uttered  by  Mrs.  Nqrris  is  a  new  and 
luminous  revelation;  we  know  her  just  that 
much  better  than  we  did  before  she  spoke. 
Even  Sense  and  Sensibility,  by  no  means  the 
best  of  Miss  Austen's  novels,  starts  with  that 
admirable  discussion  between  Mr.  John  Dash- 


CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS  63 

wood  and  his  wife  on  the  subject  of  his  mother's 
and  sisters'  maintenance.  It  is  a  short  chapter, 
the  second  in  the  book,  and  at  its  close  we  are 
masters  of  the  whole  situation.  We  have 
sounded  the  feeble  egotism  of  Mr.  Dashwood, 
and  the  adroit  meanness  of  his  spouse.  We  know 
precisely  what  degree  of  assistance  Elinor  and 
Marianne  are  likely  to  receive  from  them.  We 
foresee  the  relation  these  characters  will  bear 
to  each  other  during  the  progress  of  the  story, 
and  we  have  been  shown  with  delicious  humor 
how  easy  and  pleasant  is  the  task  of  self- 
deception.  That  a  girl  of  nineteen  should  have 
been  capable  of  such  keenly  artistic  work  is 
simply  one  of  the  miracles  of  literature;  and 
the  more  we  think  about  it,  the  more  mirac 
ulous  it  grows.  The  best  we  can  do  is  to  bow 
our  heads,  and  pay  unqualified  homage  at  its 
shrine. 

Some  portion  of  Jane  Austen's  ability  for 
portraying  character  in  conversation  is  discern 
ible  in  at  least  one  of  her  too  numerous  succes 
sors  in  the  craft.  The  authoress  of  Mademoi 
selle  Ixe  and  of  Cecilia  de  Noel  has  already 


64  CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS 

proven  to  the  world  how  deft  and  skilful  is 
her  manipulation  of  that  difficult  medium, 
drawing-room  gossip.  It  would  be  unjust  and 
absurd  to  compare  her  stories,  slight  and  un 
substantial  as  pencil  sketches,  with  the  finished 
masterpieces  of  English  fiction;  but  there  are 
touches  in  these  modern  tales  which  convince 
even  a  casual  reader  of  splendid  possibilities 
ahead.  The  setting  of  Mademoiselle  Ixe  is  so 
fine,  the  lightly  drawn  English  people  who  sur 
round  the  mysterious  governess  and  her  still 
more  mysterious  victim  are  so  real,  that  we 
cease  to  ask  ourselves  obtrusive  questions  con 
cerning  the  purpose  and  utility  of  the  crime. 
Better  still  are  some  of  the  scenes  in  Cecilia  de 
Noel,  where  Lady  Atherley's  serene  and  imper 
turbable  good  sense  tempers  the  atmosphere, 
and  gives  exactly  the  proper  effect  to  her  hus 
band's  rather  long-winded  eloquence,  to  Mrs. 
Mostyn's  amiable  and  cruel  evangelism,  and 
to  Mrs.  Molyneux's  amusing  eccentricities.  All 
these  characters  have  individuality  of  their 
own,  and  all  reveal  themselves  through  the  in 
tricacies  of  conversation,  while  occasionally 


CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS  65 

there  is  a  felicitous  touch  worthy  of  Jane  Aus 
ten's  hand  ;  as  when  Lady  Atherley  listens 
tranquilly  to  Mrs.  Mostyn's  tirade  against  the 
ritualistic  curate,  and  evolves  from  it  the  one 
judicious  conclusion  that  he  is  evidently  an 
Austyn  of  Temple  Leigh,  and  that  it  would  be 
desirable  to  ask  him  to  dinner. 

The  real  drawback  to  Lanoe  Falconer's  art 
is,  not  the  brevity  of  her  work,  but  the  fact  that 
her  people  cannot  develop  on  purely  natural 
lines,  because  they  are  hampered  by  the  ter 
rible  necessity  of  illustrating  a  moral;  and 
even  in  their  most  unguarded  moments  the 
task  assigned  them  is  never  wholly  laid  aside. 
It  is  seldom  that  a  good  tract  is  a  good  story 
too,  and  all  the  novelist's  skill  is  powerless  to 
impart  a  vivid  semblance  of  truth  to  characters 
who  have  to  "  talk  up  "  to  a  given  subject,  and 
teach  a  given  lesson.  The  inartistic  treatment 
of  material  results,  curiously  enough,  in  weak 
ening  our  sense  of  reality;  yet  if  the  authoress 
of  Cecilia  de  Noel  would  consent,  for  a  few 
short  years,  to  abandon  social  and  spiritual 
problems,  to  concern  herself  as  little  with  Ni- 


66  CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS 

hilism  as  with  eternal  punishment,  but  to  be 
content,  as  Jane  Austen  was  content, with  tell 
ing  a  story,  perhaps  that  story  might  be  no 
unworthy  successor  of  those  matchless  tales 
which  are  our  refuge  and  solace  in  these  dark 
days  of  ethical  and  unorthodox  fiction. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  charming  conversa 
tion,  which  is  not  as  well  known  as  it  should 
be,  in  the  best  novels  of  Anthony  Trollope. 
He  gives  his  characters  plenty  of  time  and  op 
portunity  to  talk,  without  forcing  them  into 
arbitrary  channels;  and  occasionally,  as  with 
Mrs.  Proudie  and  Archdeacon  Grantly,  and 
Lady  Glencora,  he  persuades  them  to  let  us 
know  exactly  what  kind  of  people  they  are. 
Above  all,  there  is  such  an  air  of  veracity  about 
his  causeries  that  the  most  skeptical  reader 
listens  to  them  without  a  shadow  of  doubt. 
Who  can  ever  forget  Bertie  Stanhope  intimat 
ing  to  Bishop  Proudie  that  he  had  once  thought 
of  being  a  prelate  himself,  or  Lady  Glencora's 
midnight  confidences  to  Alice,  or  that  crucial 
contest  between  Dr.  Tempest  and  Mrs.  Proudie  ! 
What  pleasant  wrangling  goes  on  in  Mrs. 


CONVERSATION  IN  NOVELS  6/ 

Dobbs  Broughton's  room  over  the  memorable 
picture  of  Jael,  when  Dalrymple  desires  his 
model  to  lean  forward,  throwing  her  weight 
on  the  nail,  and  Miss  Van  Siever  not  unnatu 
rally  suggests  that  such  an  action  would  prob 
ably  have  awakened  Sisera  before  the  murder 
was  done  !  It  all  seems  idle  enough — this  care 
less,  lively  talk — but  is  by  no  means  purpose 
less.  Life  is  built  up  of  such  moments,  and  if 
we  are  to  live  with  the  people  in  books,  it  must 
be  through  little  confidences  on  their  parts  and 
sympathy  on  ours;  it  must  be  through  uncon 
scious  confidences  on  their  parts  and  unre 
stricted  sympathy  on  ours. 

Now,  if  a  novelist  permits  his  characters  to 
talk  at  us,  the  charm  of  unconsciousness  is  gone. 
If  we  feel  for  a  moment  they  are  uttering  his 
sentiments  for  our  approval  or  conversion,  we 
cease  to  sympathize  because  we  cease  to  be 
lieve.  There  is  a  clever  and  suspiciously  op 
portune  conversation  in  David  Grieve  between 
that  sorely  tried  hero  and  an  intelligent  work- 
ingwoman  in  the  Champs  Elysees  upon  the 
relative  merits  of  1'Union  Legale  and  1'Union 


68  CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS 

Libre.  It  is,  of  course,  a  highly  dispassionate 
discussion,  intended  as  an  appeal  to  reason 
and  not  to  conscience;  therefore  the  old-fash 
ioned  arguments  of  right  and  wrong,  God  and 
the  Church,  are  carefully  omitted.  It  fits  in 
neatly  with  David's  experiences,  and  places 
the  whole  matter  in  a  singularly  lucid  light 
before  the  reader's  eyes.  Its  one  serious  draw 
back  is  that  we  can  never  persuade  ourselves 
to  believe  that  it  ever  took  place.  The  French 
woman  is  brought  so  suddenly  up  to  the  mark; 
she  says  so  plainly  that  which  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward  thinks  she  ought  to  say;  she  is  so  charm 
ingly  unprejudiced  and  convincing,  that  we 
lose  all  faith  in  her  before  she  has  spoken  a 
dozen  words.  The  correctness  of  her  views 
counts  for  nothing.  "  When  we  leave  out  what 
we  don't  like,  we  can  demonstrate  most  things," 
says  the  late  Rector  of  Lincoln;  and  it  is  at 
least  doubtful  whether  men  and  women  ever 
live  virtuous  lives  on  the  strength  of  an  argu 
ment.  Lady  Bertram,  of  Mansfield  Park,  re 
marking  placidly  from  her  sofa,  "  Do  not  act 
anything  improper,  my  dears;  Sir  Thomas 


CONVERSATION   IN   NOVELS  69 

would  not  like  it,"  may  not  exert  a  powerful 
influence  for  good;  but  who  has  any  shadow 
of  doubt  that  those  are  her  very  words  ?  They 
are  spoken — as  they  should  be — to  her  daugh 
ters,  and  not  to  us.  They  are  spoken — as  they 
should  be — -by  Lady  Bertram,  and  not  by  Jane 
Austen.  Therefore  we  listen  with  content,  and 
take  comfort  in  the  thought  that,  whatever 
severities  may  be  inflicted  on  us  by  the  novel 
ists  of  the  future,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  prog 
ress  to  deprive  us  of  the  past. 


f     A  SHORT  DEFENCE  OF  VILLAINS 

AMID  the  universal  grayness  that  has  set 
tled  mistily  down  upon  English  fiction, 
amid  the  delicate  drab-colored  shadings  and 
half-lights  which  require,  we  are  told,  so  fine  a 
skill  in  handling,  the  old  -  fashioned  reader 
misses,  now  and  then,  the  vivid  coloring  of  his 
youth.  He  misses  the  slow  unfolding  of  quite 
impossible  plots,  the  thrilling  incidents  that 
were  wont  pleasantly  to  arouse  his  apprehen 
sion,  and,  most  of  all,  two  characters  once 
deemed  essential  to  every  novel — the  hero  and 
the  villain.  The  heroine  is  left  us  still,  and  her 
functions  are  far  more  complicated  than  in  the 
simple  days  of  yore,  when  little  was  required  of 
her  save  to  be  beautiful  as  the  stars.  She  faces 
now  the  most  intricate  problems  of  life;  and 
she  faces  them  with  conscious  self-importance, 
a  dismal  power  of  analysis,  and  a  robust  can 
dor  in  discussing  their  equivocal  aspects  that 
70 


A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          /I 

would  have  sent  her  buried  sister  blushing  to 
the  wall.  There  was  sometimes  a  lamentable 
lack  of  solid  virtue  in  this  fair  dead  sister,  a 
pitiful  human  weakness  that  led  to  her  undo 
ing;  but  she  never  talked  so  glibly  about  sin. 
As  for  the  hero,  he  owes  his  banishment  to  the 
riotous  manner  in  which  his  masters  handled 
him.  Bulwer  strained  our  endurance  and  our 
credulity  to  the  utmost;  Disraeli  took  a  step 
further^  and  Lothair,  the  last  of  his  race,  per 
ished  amid  the  cruel  laughter  of  mankind. 

But  the  villain  !  Remember  what  we  owe  to 
him  in  the  past.  Think  how  dear  he  has  be 
come  to  every  rightly  constituted  mind.  And 
now  we  are  told,  soberly  and  coldly,  by  the 
thin-blooded  novelists  of  the  day,  that  his  ab 
sence  is  one  of  the  crowning  triumphs  of  mod 
ern  genius,  that  we  have  all  grown  too  discrim 
inating  to  tolerate  in  fiction  a  character  who 
we  feel  does  not  exist  in  life.  Man,  we  are  re 
minded,  is  complex,  subtle,  unfathomable, 
made  up  of  good  and  evil  so  dexterously  inter 
mingled  that  no  one  element  predominates 
coarsely  over  the  rest.  He  is  to  be  studied 


72    A  SHORT  DEFENCE  OF  VILLAINS 

warily  and  with  misgivings,  not  classified  with 
brutal  ease  into  the  virtuous  and  bad.  It  is 
useless  to  explain  to  these  analysts  that  the 
pleasure  we  take  in  meeting  a  character  in  a 
book  does  not  always  depend  on  our  having 
known  him  in  the  family  circle,  or  encountered 
him  in  our  morning  paper ;  though,  judged 
even  by  this  stringent  law,  the  villain  holds  his 
own.  Accept  Balzac's  rule,  and  exclude  from 
fiction  not  only  all  which  might  not  really 
happen,  but  all  which  has  not  really  happen 
ed  in  truth,  and  we  would  still  have  studies 
enough  in  total  depravity  to  darken  all  the 
novels  in  Christendom. 

What  murder  of  romance  was  ever  so  wanton, 
so  tragic,  and  so  sombre  as  that  which  gave  to 
the  Edinburgh  highway  the  name  of  Gabriel's 
Road  ?  There,  in  the  sweet  summer  afternoon, 
fresh  with  the  breath  of  primroses  and  cow 
slips,  the  young  tutor  cut  the  throats  of  his  two 
little  pupils,  in  a  mad,  inexplicable  revenge 
for  their  childish  tale-bearing.  Taken  red- 
handed  in  the  deed,  he  met  with  swift  retribu 
tion  from  the  furious  populace;  and  the  same 


A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          73 

hour  which  witnessed  the  crime  saw  his  pin 
ioned  corpse  dangling  from  the  nearest  tree, 
with  the  bloody  knife  hung  in  awful  mockery 
around  its  neck.  Thus  the  murder  and  its 
punishment  conspired  to  make  the  lonely  road 
a  haunted  path,  ghost-ridden,  terrible;  where 
women  shivered  and  hurried  on,  and  little 
boys,  creepy  with  fear,  scampered  by,  breath 
less,  in  the  dusk;  seeing  before  them  always, 
on  the  ragged  turf,  two  small,  piteous,  blood- 
smeared  bodies,  and  hearing  ever,  overhead, 
the  rattle  of  the  rusty  knife  against  the  felon's 
bones.  The  highway,  with  its  unholy  associa 
tions  discreetly  perpetuated  in  its  name,  became 
an  education  to  the  good  people  of  Edinburgh, 
and  taught  them  the  value  of  emotions.  They 
must  have  indistinctly  felt  what  Mr.  Louis  Ste 
venson  has  so  well  described,  the  subtle  har 
mony  that  unites  an  evil  deed  to  its  location. 
"  Some  places,"  he  says,  "  speak  distinctly. 
Certain  dark  gardens  cry  aloud  for  a  murder; 
certain  old  houses  demand  to  be  haunted;  cer 
tain  coasts  are  set  apart  for  shipwreck.  Other 
spots,  again,  seem  to  abide  their  destiny,  sug- 


74         A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF  VILLAINS 

gestive  and  impenetrable."  And  is  all  this  fine 
and  delicate  sentiment,  all  this  skillful  playing 
with  horror  and  fear,  to  be  lost  to  fiction,  mere 
ly  because,  as  De  Quincey  reluctantly  admits, 
'*  the  majority  of  murderers  are  incorrect  char 
acters  "  ?  May  we  not  forgive  their  general 
incorrectness  for  the  sake  of  their  literary  and 
artistic  value  ?  Shall  Charles  Lamb's  testimony 
count  for  nothing,  when  we  remember  his  com 
fortable  allusion  to  "  kind,  light-hearted  Wain- 
wright  "  ?  And  what  shall  we  think  of  Edward 
Fitzgerald,  the  gentlest  and  least  hurtful  of 
Englishmen,  abandoning  himself,  in  the  clear 
and  genial  weather,  to  the  delights  of  Tacitus, 
"  full  of  pleasant  atrocity  "  ? 

Repentant  villains,  I  must  confess,  are  not 
greatly  to  my  mind.  They  sacrifice  their  ar 
tistic  to  their  ethical  value,  and  must  be  handled 
with  consummate  skill  to  escape  a  suspicious 
flavor  of  Sunday-school  romance.  The  hard 
ened  criminal,  disarmed  and  converted  by  the 
innocent  attractions  of  childhood,  is  a  favorite 
device  of  poets  and  story- writers  who  cater  to 
the  sentiments  of  maternity;  but  it  is  wiser  to 


A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          75 

lay  no  stress  upon  the  permanency  of  such 
conversions.  That  swift  and  sudden  yielding 
to  a  gentle  emotion  or  a  noble  aspiration, 
which  is  one  of  the  undying  traits  of  humanity, 
attracts  us  often  by  the  very  force  of  its  eva 
nescence,  by  the  limitations  which  prove  its 
truth.  But  the  slow,  stern  process  of  regen 
eration  is  not  an  emotional  matter,  and  cannot 
be  convincingly  portrayed  with  a  few  facile 
touches  in  the  last  chapter  of  a  novel.  Thack 
eray  knew  better  than  this,  when  he  showed  us 
Becky  Sharp  touched  and  softened  by  her  good 
little  sister-in-law;  heartsick  now  and  then  of 
her  own  troublesome  schemes,  yet  sinking  in 
evitably  lower  and  lower  through  the  weight 
of  overmastering  instincts  and  desires.  She 
can  aspire  intermittingly  to  a  cleaner  life,  but 
she  can  never  hope  to  reach  it.  The  simple  lit 
erature  of  the  past  is  curiously  rich  in  these  pa 
thetic  transient  glimpses  into  fallen  nature's 
brighter  side.  Where  can  we  see  depicted  with 
more  tenderness  and  truth  the  fitful  relenting 
of  man's  brutality,  after  it  has  wrought  the  ruin 
it  devised,  than  in  the  fine  old  ballad  of  Edom 


?  A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS 

O  Gordon  ?  The  young  daughter  of  the  house 
of  Rodes  is  lowered  from  the  walls  of  the  burn 
ing  castle,  and  the  cruel  Gordon  spears  trans 
fix  her  as  she  falls.  She  lies  dead,  in  .her 
budding  girlhood,  at  the  feet  of  her  father's  foe, 
and  his  heart  is  strangely  stirred  and  troubled 
when  he  looks  at  her  childish  face. 

"  O  bonnie,  bonnie  was  hir  mouth, 

And  cherry  were  hir  cheiks, 
And  clear,  clear  was  hir  yellow  hair, 
Whereon  the  reid  bluid  dreips. 

"  Then  wi'  his  spear  he  turned  hir  owre, 

0  gin  hir  face  was  wan  ! 

He  sayd,  '  You  are  the  first  that  eir 

1  wisht  alive  again.' 

"  He  turned  hir  owre  and  owre  again, 

O  gin  hir  skin  was  whyte  ! 
'  I  might  hae  spared  that  bonnie  face 

To  hae  been  sum  man's  delyte.'  " 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  the  ruthless  butcher 
was  promptly  pursued  and  slain  for  his  crime, 
but  it  is  finer  still  to  realize  that  brief  moment 
of  bitterness  and  shame.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  Rossetti's  Sister  Helen  would 
have  gained  in  artistic  beauty  if,  after  those 


A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          ?/ 

three  days  of  awful  watching  were  over,  af 
ter  the  glowing  fragment  of  wax  had  melted 
in  the  flames,  and  her  lover's  soul  had  passed 
her,  sighing  on  the  wind,  there  had  come  to 
the  stricken  girl  a  pang  of  supreme  regret,  an 
impulse  of  mad  desire  to  undo  the  horror  she 
had  wrought.  The  conscience  of  a  sinner,  to 
use  a  striking  phrase  of  Mr.  Brownell's,  "  is 
doubtless  readjusted  rather  than  repudiated 
altogether,"  and  there  is  an  absolute  truthful 
ness  in  these  sudden  relapses  into  grace. 

For  this  reason,  doubtless,  I  find  Mr.  Black- 
more's  villains,  with  all  their  fascination  and 
power,  a  shade  too  heavily,  or  at  least  too 
monotonously  darkened.  Parson  Chowne  is 'a 
veritable  devil,  and  it  is  only  his  occasional 
humor — manifested  grimly  in  deeds,  not  words 
— which  enables  us  to  bear  the  weight  of  his 
insupportable  wickedness.  The  introduction 
of  the  naked  savages  as  an  outrage  to  village 
propriety;  the  summons  to  church,  when  he 
has  a  mind  to  fire  the  ricks  of  his  parishioners, 
— these  are  the  life-giving  touches  which  mel 
low  down  this  overwrought  figure,  this  black 


?8          A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS 

and  scowling  thunderbolt  of  humanity.  Per 
haps,  also,  Mr.  Blackmore,  in  his  laudable  de 
sire  for  picturesqueness,  lays  too  much  stress 
on  the  malignant  aspect,  the  appropriate  phys 
ical  condition  of  his  sinners.  From  Parson 
Chowne's  "wondrous  unfathomable  face," 
which  chills  every  heart  with  terror,  to  the 
"  red  glare  "  in  Donovan  Bulrag's  eyes,  there 
is  always  something  exceptional  about  these 
worthies,  to  indicate  to  all  beholders  what 
manner  of  men  they  are.  One  is  reminded 
of  Charles  II.  protesting,  not  unnaturally, 
against  the  perpetual  swarthiness  of  stage  vil 
lains.  "We  never  see  a  rogue  in  a  play  but 
we  clap  on  him  a  black  periwig,"  complained 
the  dark-skinned  monarch,  with  a  sense  of 
personal  grievance  in  this  forced  association 
between  complexion  and  crime.  It  was  the 
same  subtle  inspiration  which  prompted  Kean 
to  play  Shylock  in  a  red  wig  that  suggested 
to  Wilkie  Collins  Count  Fosco's  admirable 
size.  The  passion  for  embroidered  waistcoats 
and  fruit  tarts,  the  petted  white  mice,  the  sym 
pathetic  gift  of  pastry  to  the  organ-grinder's 


A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF  VILLAINS          79 

monkey,  all  the  little  touches  which  go  to 
build  up  this  colossal,  tender-hearted,  remorse 
less,  irresistible  scoundrel  are  of  interest  and 
value  to  the  portrait,  but  his  fat  is  as  essential 
as  his  knavery.  It  is  one  of  those  master 
strokes  of  genius  which  breaks  away  from  all 
accepted  traditions  to  build  up  a  new  type, 
perfect  and  unapproachable.  We  can  no 
more  imagine  a  thin  Fosco  than  a  melancholy 
Dick  Swiveller,  or  a  light-hearted  Ravens- 
wood. 

Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  who  enjoys  upon  all  oc 
casions  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  has,  in 
one  of  those  pleasant  papers,  "At  the  Sign  of 
the  Ship,"  given  utterance  to  a  sentiment  so 
shockingly  at  variance  with  the  prevalent  the 
ory  of  fiction,  that  the  reader  is  divided  be 
tween  admiration  for  his  boldness  and  a  vague 
surprise  that  a  man  should  speak  such  words 
and  live.  There  is  a  cheerfulness,  too,  about 
Mr.  Lang's  heterodoxy,  a  smiling  ignorance  of 
his  own  transgression,  that  warms  our  hearts 
and  weakens  our  upbraiding.  "The  old  sim 
ple  scheme,"  he  says,  "  in  which  you  had  a  real 


80         A   SHORT   DEFENCE    OF   VILLAINS 

unmitigated  villain,  a  heroine  as  pure  as  snow 
or  flame,  and  a  crowd  of  good  ordinary  people, 
gave  us  more  agreeable  reading,  and  reading 
not,  I  think,  more  remote  from  truth,  than  is  to 
be  found  in  Dr.  Ibsen's  Ghosts  or  in  his  Pillars 
of  Society''     Now  to  support  such  a  statement 
would  be  unscrupulous;  to  condemn  it,  dispirit 
ing;  but  I  wonder  if  the  "real  unmitigated  vil 
lain  "  is  quite  so  simple  a  product  as  Mr.  Lang 
appears  to  imagine.  May  not  his  absence  from 
literature  be  owing  as  much  to  the  limitations 
as  to  the  disregard  of  modern  realists?     Is  he, 
in  truth,  so  easily  drawn  as  to  be  unworthy  of 
their  subtle  and  discriminating  pens  ?     Is  Sir 
Giles  Overreach  a  mere  child's  toy  in  compar 
ison  with  Consul  Bernick,  and  is  Brian  de  Bois- 
Guilbert  unworthy  to  rank  with  Johann  Tonne- 
sen  and  Oswald  Alving  ?     A  villain  must  be  a 
thing  of  power,    handled   with    delicacy   and 
grace.     He  must  be  wicked  enough  to  excite 
our  aversion,  strong  enough  to  arouse  our  fear, 
human   enough    to    awaken    some    transient 
gleam  of  sympathy.     We  must  triumph  in  his 
downfall,  yet  not  barbarously  nor  with  con- 


A   SHORT    DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          8l 

tempt,  and  the  close  of  his  career  must  be  in 
harmony  with  all  its  previous  development. 
Mrs.  Pennell  has  told  us  the  story  of  some  old 
Venetian  witches,  who  were  converted  from 
their  dark  ways,  and  taught  the  charms  of 
peace  and  godliness;  but  who  would  desire  or 
credit  the  conversion  of  a  witch  ?  The  potency 
of  evil  lies  within  her  to  the  end;  and  when, 
by  a  few  muttered  words,  she  can  raise  a  hell 
storm  on  the  ocean;  when  her  eye's  dim  fire 
can  wither  the  strength  of  her  enemy;  or 
when,  with  a  lock  of  hair  and  a  bit  of  wax,  she 
can  consume  him  with  torturing  pain,  who 
will  welcome  her  neighborly  advances  ?  The 
proper  and  artistic  end  of  a  witch  is  at  the 
stake — blue  flames  curling  up  to  heaven,  and 
a  handful  of  gray  ashes  scattered  to  the  wind; 
or,  by  the  working  of  a  stronger  spell,  she 
may  be  stiffened  into  stone,  and  doomed  to 
stand  forever  on  some  desolate  moor,  where, 
underneath  starless  skies,  her  evil  feet  have 
strayed;  or  perhaps  that  huge  black  cat,  her 
sinister  attendant,  has  completed  his  ninth 
year  of  servitude  to  nine  successive  witches, 


82          A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS 

and,  by  virtue  of  the  power  granted  him  at 
their  expiration,  he  may  whisk  her  off  bodily 
on  St.  John's  Eve,  to  offer  her  a  living  holo 
caust  to  Satan.  These  are  possibilities  in  strict 
sympathy  with  her  character  and  history,  if 
not  with  her  inclinations;  the  last  is  in  espe 
cial  accordance  with  sound  Italian  tradition, 
and  all  reveal  what  Heine  calls  "  the  melan 
choly  pleasurable  awe,  the  dark  sweet  horror, 
of  Mediaeval  ghost  fancies."  But  a  converted 
witch,  walking  demurely  to  vesper  service, 
gossiping  with  good,  garrulous  old  women  on 
the  doorstep,  or  holding  an  innocent  child 
within  her  withered  arms — the  very  thought 
repels  us  instinctively,  and  fires  us  with  a 
sharp  mistrust.  Have  a  care,  you  foolish 
young  mother,  and  snatch  your  baby  to  your 
breast;  for  even  now  he  waxes  paler  and  paler, 
as  those  cold,  malignant  heart-throbs  chill  his 
breath,  and  wear  his  little  life  away. 

The  final  disposition  of  a  mere  earthly  vil 
lain  should  likewise  be  a  matter  of  artistic  ne 
cessity,  not  a  harsh  trampling  of  arrogant  vir 
tue  upon  prostrate  vice.  There  is  no  mistake 


A  SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          83 

so  fatal  as  that  of  injustice  to  the  evil  element 
of  a  novel  or  a  play.  We  all  know  how,  when 
Portia  pushes  her  triumphant  casuistry  a  step 
too  far,  our  sympathies  veer  obstinately 
around  to  Shylock's  side,  and  refuse  to  be  re 
adjusted  before  the  curtain  falls.  Perhaps 
Shakespeare  intended  this, — who  knows  ? — 
and  threw  in  Gratiano's  last  jeers  to  madden, 
not  the  usurer,  but  the  audience.  Or  perhaps 
in  Elizabeth's  day,  as  in  King  John's,  people 
had  not  grown  so  finical  about  the  feelings  of 
a  Jew,  and  it  is  only  the  chilly  tolerance  of 
our  enlightened  age  which  prevents  our  enjoy 
ing  as  we  should  the  devout  prejudices  of  our 
ancestors.  But  when,  in  a  modern  novel, 
guiltless  of  all  this  picturesque  superstition, 
we  see  the  sinner  treated  with  a  narrow,  nag 
ging  sort  of  severity,  our  unregenerate  nature 
rebels  stoutly  against  such  a  manifest  lack  of 
balance.  Not  long  ago,  I  chanced  to  read  a 
story  which  actually  dared  to  have  a  villain  for 
a  hero,  and  I  promised  myself  much  pleasure 
from  so  original  and  venturesome  a  step.  But 
how  did  the  very  popular  authoress  treat  her 


84          A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS 

own  creation  ?  In  the  first  place,  when  res 
cued  from  a  truly  feminine  haze  of  hints,  and 
dark  whispers,  and  unsubstantiated  innuendoes, 
the  hapless  man  is  proven  guilty  of  but  three 
offences:  he  takes  opium,  he  ejects  his  tenants, 
and  he  tries,  not  very  successfully,  to  mesmer 
ize  his  wife.  Now,  opium-eating  is  a  vice,  the 
punishment  for  which  is  borne  by  the  offender, 
and  which  merits  as  much  pity  as  contempt; 
rack-renting  is  an  unpardonable,  but  not  at  all 
a  thrilling  misdemeanor;  and,  in  these  days  of 
psychological  research,  there  are  many  excel 
lent  men  who  would  not  shrink  from  making 
hypnotic  experiments  on  their  grandmothers. 
In  consequence,  however,  of  such  feeble  atroc 
ities,  the  hero-villain  is  subjected  to  a  species 
of  outlawry  at  the  hands  of  all  the  good  people 
in  the  book.  His  virtuous  cousin  makes  open 
and  highly  honorable  love  to  his  virtuous  wife, 
who  responds  with  hearty  alacrity.  His  virtu 
ous  cousin's  still  more  virtuous  brother  comes 
within  an  ace  of  murdering  him  in  cold  blood, 
through  motives  of  the  purest  philanthropy. 
Finally,  one  of  these  virtuous  young  men  lets 


A  SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS          85 

loose  on  him  his  family  ghost,  deliberately  un 
sealing  the  spectral  abiding-place;  and,  while 
the  virtuous  wife  clings  around  the  virtuous 
cousin's  neck,  and  forbids  him  tenderly  to  go 
to  the  rescue,  the  accommodating  spirit — who 
seems  to  have  no  sort  of  loyalty  to  the  con 
nection — slays  the  villain  at  his  own  doorstep, 
and  leaves  the  coast  free  for  a  second  marriage 
service.  Practically,  the  device  is  an  admira 
ble  one,  because,  when  the  ghost  retires  once 
more  to  his  seclusion,  nobody  can  well  be 
convicted  of  manslaughter,  and  a  great  deal  of 
scandal  is  saved.  But,  artistically,  there  is 
something  repellent  in  this  open  and  shame 
less  persecution;  in  three  persons  and  a  hob 
goblin  conspiring  against  one  poor  man.  Our 
sentiment  is  diverted  from  its  proper  channel, 
our  emotions  are  manifestly  incorrect. 

"  How  are  you  to  get  up  the  sympathies  of 
the  audience  in  a  legitimate  manner,"  asks  Mr. 
Vincent  Crummies,  "  if  there  is  n't  a  little  man 
contending  against  a  big  one  ? — unless  there's 
at  least  five  to  one,  and  we  have  n't  hands 
enough  for  that  business  in  our  company." 


86          A   SHORT   DEFENCE   OF   VILLAINS 

What  would  the  noble-hearted  Mr.  Crummies 
have  thought  of  reversing  this  natural  order  of 
things,  and  declaring  victory  for  the  multitude? 
How  would  human  nature,  in  the  provinces, 
have  supported  so  novel  and  hazardous  an  in 
novation  ?  Why  should  human  nature,  out  of 
the  provinces,  be  assumed  to  have  outgrown 
its  simple,  chivalrous  instincts  ?  A  good, 
strong,  designing,  despicable  villain,  or  even 
villainess,  a  fair  start,  a  stout  fight,  an  artistic 
overthrow,  and  triumphant  Virtue  smiling 
modestly  beneath  her  orange  blossoms — shall 
we  ever  be  too  old  and  world-worn  to  love 
these  old  and  world-worn  things  ? 


A  BY-WAY  IN  FICTION 

'XTOW  and  then  the  wearied  and  worn 
•*•  ^  novel-reader,  sick  unto  death  of  books 
about  people's  beliefs  and  disbeliefs,  their  con 
scientious  scruples  and  prejudices,  their  unique 
aspirations  and  misgivings,  their  cumbersome 
vices  and  virtues,  is  recompensed  for  much  suf 
fering  by  an  hour  of  placid  but  genuine  enjoy 
ment.  He  picks  up  rather  dubiously  a  little, 
unknown  volume,  and,  behold  !  the  writer 
thereof  takes  him  gently  by  the  hand,  and  leads 
him  straightway  into  a  fair  country,  where  the 
sun  is  shining,  and  men  and  women  smile 
kindly  on  him,  and  nobody  talks  unorthodox 
theology,  and  everybody  seems  disposed  to 
allow  everybody  else  the  privilege  of  being 
nappy  in  his  own  way.  When  to  these  admi 
rable  qualities  are  added  humor  and  an  atmos- 
87 


88  A  BY-WAY  IN  FICTION 

phere  of  appreciative  cultivation,  the  novel- 
reader  feels  indeed  that  his  lines  have  been 
cast  in  pleasant  places,  and  he  is  disposed  to 
linger  along  in  a  very  contented  and  uncritical 
frame  of  mind. 

There  has  come  to  us  recently  a  new  and 
beautiful  edition  of  such  a  little  book,  pub 
lished  in  America,  but  born  of  Italian  soil  and 
sunshine.  It  has.  for  a  title  The  Chevalier  of 
Pensieri-Vani,  together  with  Frequent  Allu 
sions  to  the  Pro rege  of  A  rcopia,  which  is  rather 
an  unmerciful  string  of  words  to  describe  so 
gay  and  easy-going  a  narrative.  It  is  the  first 
full-fledged  literary  venture  of  its  author,  Mr. 
Henry  Fuller,  also  known  as  Stanton  Page, 
whose  New  England  grandfather  was  a  cousin 
of  Margaret  Fuller's.  The  story,  which  is  not 
really  a  story  at  all,  but  a  series  of  detached 
episodes,  rambles  backward  and  forward  in 
such  a  bewildering  fashion  that  the  chapters 
might  be  all  rearranged  without  materially  dis 
turbing  its  slender  thread  of  continuity.  It  is 
equally  guiltless  of  plot  or  purpose,  of  dramatic 
incidents  or  realistic  details.  The  Chevalier  may 


A  BY-WAY  IN  FICTION  89 

be  found  now  in  Pisa,  now  in  Venice,  now  in 
Ostia  or  Ravenna,  never  driven  by  the  vul 
gar  spur  of  necessity,  always  wandering  of  his 
own  free  and  idle  will.  He  is  accompanied 
sometimes  by  his  friend  Hors-Concours,  an 
Italianized  Frenchman  from  Savoy,  and  some 
times  by  the  Prorege  of  Arcopia,  the  delight 
ful  Prorege,  who  gives  to  the  book  its  best  and 
most  distinctive  flavor.  At  once  dignified  and 
urbane,  conscious  of  his  exalted  position,  and 
convinced  that  he  fills  it  with  equal  grace  and 
correctness,  this  superb  official  moves  through 
the  tale  in  an  atmosphere  of  autocratic  reserve, 
tempered  with  the  most  delicate  courtesy. 
His  ministerial  views  are  as  unalterable  as  the 
rocks,  and  as  sound  ;  but  he  listens  to  the 
democratic  ravings  of  his  young  American 
protege,  Occident,  with  the  good-humored  in 
dulgence  one  accords  to  a  beloved  and  preco 
cious  child.  It  must  be  confessed  that  Occident 
fails  to  make  his  arguments  very  convincing, 
or  to  impress  his  own  personality  with  any  de 
gree  of  clearness  upon  the  reader's  mind.  He 
is  at  best  only  a  convenient  listener  to  the 


90  A  BY-WAY  IN   FICTION 

Prorege's  delicious  theories  ;  he  is  of  real  value 
only  because  the  Prorege  condescends  to  talk 
to  him.  When  he  ventures  upon  a  truly 
American  remark  about  trying  "  to  find  the 
time"  for  something,  his  august  friend  reminds 
him,  with  dignity,  that  "the  only  man  to  be 
envied  was  the  man  whose  time  was  in  some 
degree  his  own,  and  the  most  pitiable  object 
that  civilization  could  offer  was  the  rich  man  a 
slave  to  his  chronometer.  Too  much  had  been 
said  about  the  dignity  of  labor,  and  not  enough 
about  the  preciousness  of  leisure.  Civilization 
in  its  last  outcome  was  heavily  in  the  debt  of 
leisure,  and  the  success  of  any  society  worth 

considering  was  to  be  estimated  largely  by  the 

• 

use  to  which  its  fortunati  had  put  their  spare 
moments.  He  wrung  from  Occident  the  con 
fession  that,  in  the  great  land  of  which  Shelby 
County  may  be  called  the  centre,  activity,  con 
sidered  of  itself  and  quite  apart  from  its  objects 
and  its  results,  was  regarded  as  a  very  merito 
rious  thing;  and  he  learned  that  the  bare  figure 
of  leisure,  when  exposed  to  the  public  gaze,  was 
expected  to  be  decorously  draped  in  the  gar- 


A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  91 

ment  of  strenuous  endeavor.  People  were 
supposed  to  appear  busy,  even  if  they  were 
not.  This  gave  the  Prorege  a  text  for  a  lit 
tle  disquisition  on  the  difference  between  lei 
sure  and  idleness." 

In  fact,  a  beautiul,  cultivated,  polished,  un- 
marred,  well-spent  inactivity  is  the  keynote  of 
this  serene  little  book;  and  to  understand  its 
charm  and  meaning  we  have  but  to  follow  the 
Chevalier,  in  the  second  chapter,  to  Pisa — to 
Pisa  the  restful,  where  "life  is  not  strongly  ac 
centuated  by  positive  happenings,  where  inci 
dent  is  unusual,  and  drama  quite  unknown." 
The  Chevalier's  windows,  we  are  told,  faced  the 
north,  and  he  sat  and  looked  out  of  them  rather 
more  than  active  persons  would  deem  pleasant 
or  profitable.  It  even  happened  that  the 
Prorege  remarked  this  comfortable  habit,  and 
demanded  of  his  friend  what  it  was  he  looked 
at,  inasmuch  as  there  seemed  to  be  no  appreci 
able  change  from  day  to  day.  To  which  the 
Chevalier,  in  whom  "  Quietism  was  pretty  suc 
cessfully  secularized ;  who  knew  how  to  sit  still, 
and  occasionally  enjoyed  doing  so,"  replied 


92  A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION 

with  great  acumen  that  what  had  gone  on  was 
quite  as  interesting  to  him  as  what  was  going 
on,  and  that  nothing  was  more  gratifying,  from 
his  point  of  view,  than  that  very  absence  of 
change  which  had  taken  his  Excellency's  at 
tention — since  any  change  would  be  a  change 
for  the  worse. 

He  is  destined,  as  it  chances,  to  prove  the 
truth  of  his  own  theories,  for  it  is  in  Pisa,  of  all 
places,  that  he  is  tempted  to  throw  aside  for 
once  his  role  of  contemplative  philosopher,  and 
to  assume  that  of  an  active  philanthropist,  with 
very  disastrous  results.  There  is  an  admirable 
satire  in  the  description  of  the  two  friends, 
Pensieri-Vani  and  Hors-Concours,  gravely 
plotting  to  insure  the  success  of  an  operatic 
debutante,  to  bring  her  out  in  the  sunshine  of 
their  generous  patronage,  and  with  the  direct 
approval  of  the  Prorege  himself,  who  kindly 
consents  to  sit  in  the  front  of  a  middle  box,  and 
to  wear  a  round  half-dozen  of  his  most  esteem 
ed  decorations.  Unhappily,  an  Italian  audience 
does  not  like  to  have  its  enthusiasm  expressed 
for  it,  even  by  such  noble  and  consummate 


A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  93 

critics.  As  each  well-arranged  device  of  flow 
ers  or  love-birds  in  a  gilded  cage  is  handed 
decorously  forward,  the  house  grows  colder 
and  more  quizzical,  until  the  debutante  sees 
herself  on  the  extreme  verge  of  failure,  and, 
putting  forth  all  her  powers  in  one  appealing 
effort,  she  triumphs  by  dint  of  sheer  pluck  and 
ability  over  the  fatal  kindness  of  her  friends. 
The  poor  Chevalier,  who  has  in  the  meantime 
left  the  theatre  with  many  bitter  self-commun- 
ings,  receives  his  lesson  in  a  spirit  of  touching 
humility,  recognizing  at  once  his  manifest  lim 
itations.  "  He  perceived  that  he  was  less  fitted 
to  play  the  part  of  special  providence  than  he 
had  previously  supposed;  and  he  brought  from 
this  experience  the  immeasurable  consolation 
that  comes  from  knowing  that  very  frequently 
in  this  sadly  twisted  world,  things,  if  only  left 
to  their  own  courses,  have  a  way  of  coming  out 
right  in  the  end." 

The  Pisan  episode,  the  delicious  journey  of 
the  Prorege  and  Pensieri-Vani  in  search  of 
the  "  Madonna  Incognita,"  a  mysterious  and 
illusive  Perugino  which  turns  out,  after  all,  to 


94  A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION 

be  a  Sodoma,  and  the  memorable  excursion  to 
Ostia,  are  the  finest  and  best-told  incidents  in 
the  book.  The  story  of  the  Iron  Pot  is  too 
broadly  farcical,  too  Pickwickian  in  its  charac 
ter,  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the 
narrative;  the  Contessa's  fete  at  Tusculum  is 
so  lightly  sketched  as  to  be  absolutely  tanta 
lizing;  and  the  practical  jokes  which  that  lady 
and  the  Prorege  delight  in  playing  upon  one 
another  are  hardly  as  subtle  and  acute  as  we 
would  like  to  find  them.  Indeed,  the  Prorege's 
conduct  on  board  his  own  yacht  is  so  deeply 
objectionable  that  I,  for  one,  positively  refuse 
to  believe  he  was  ever  guilty  of  such  raw  rude 
ness.  It  is  not  kind  or  right  in  Mr.  Fuller  to 
wickedly  calumniate  this  charming  and  high 
bred  gentleman  whom  he  has  given  us  for  a 
friend.  Neither  is  the  battle  of  the  Aldines  as 
thrilling  as  might  be  expected,  probably  be 
cause  it  is  impossible  to  accept  the  Duke  of 
Avon  and  Severn  upon  any  terms  whatever. 
Occident,  the  American,  is  misty  and  ill-defin 
ed;  but  he  does  not  lack  proportion,  only 
vitality.  The  English  duke  is  a  mistake 


A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  95 

throughout,  a  false  note  that  disturbs  the  at 
mosphere  of  serene  good  temper  which  is  the 
principal  attraction  of  the  book;  an  effort  on 
the  author's  part  to  be  severe  and  cynical,  just 
when  we  were  congratulating  ourselves  that 
severity  and  cynicism  were  things  far,  far  re 
mote  from  his  tolerant  and  kindly  spirit. 

The  excursion  to  Ostia,  however,  is  enough 
to  redeem  the  whole  volume  from  any  charge 
of  ill-nature;  for  if  the  Contessa  does  seize  this 
opportunity  to  play  one  of  her  dubious  tricks 
upon  the  Prorege,  it  is  not  until  the  little  group 
of  friends  have  proved  themselves  gentle,  and 
sympathetic,  and  full  of  fine  and  generous  in 
stincts.  It  is  a  delicious  bit  of  description 
throughout.  La  Nullaniuna  has  been  crowned 
the  day  before  at  her  Tusculum  fete  as  "  the 
new  Corinne,"  and  naturally  feels  that  her  prop 
er  cue  is  that  of  "  genius-blasted  fragility," 
overpowered  and  shattered  by  her  own  impas 
sioned  burst  of  song.  With  her  is  the  widowed 
Princess  Altissimi,  her  cherished  friend  and 
foil,  a  sombre  beauty  of  a  grave  and  chastened 
demeanor,  against  whose  dark  background  the 


g6  A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION 

Contessa,  "  who  was  fully  as  flighty,  and  ca 
pricious,  and  thedtrale  ac  a  woman  of  semi- 
genius  usually  finds  it  necessary  to  be,  posed 
and  fidgeted  to  her  heart's  content."  The  Pro- 
rege,  sublimely  affable  as  ever,  Pensieri-Vani, 
and  young  Occident,  eager  and  radiant,  make 
up  the  party;  and  after  the  little  inn  has  fur 
nished  them  with  a  noonday  meal  of  unusual 
profusion  and  elegance,  they  visit  the  adjoining 
church  at  the  instigation  of  the  Princess  Altis- 
simi,  who  is  anxious  to  see  what  this  solitary 
and  humble  temple  is  like.  All  that  follows  is 
so  exquisite  that  I  must  quote  it  as  it  stands, 
in  proof  of  the  author's  faculty  for  delicate  and 
sympathetic  delineation: 

"They  were  met  on  the  threshold  by  the 
single  priest  in  charge,  a  dark  and  sallow 
young  man  of  peasant  extraction,  whose  lonely 
battle  with  midsummer  malaria  had  left  him 
wholly  gaunt  and  enervate.  He  saluted  them 
with  the  deference  which  the  Church  some 
times  shows  to  the  World,  though  he  was  too 
true  an  Italian  to  be  awed,  or  even  embar 
rassed  by  their  rank;  and  he  brightened  up 


A  BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  97 

into  something  almost  like  eagerness  as  he  of- 
ferred  to  do  the  honors  of  his  charge.  The 
Prorege  indulgently  praised  the  wretched  fres 
coes  which  he  exhibited  so  proudly,  and  the 
Contessa  called  up  a  flickering  smile  of  pleas 
ure  in  his  emaciated  face  as  she  feigned  an  en 
thusiasm  for  the  paltry  fripperies  of  the  high 
altar.  This  appreciative  interest  emboldened 
him  to  suggest  their  ascent  to  the  gallery, 
where,  from  his  manner,  the  great  treasure  of 
the  church  was  to  be  revealed.  The  great 
treasure  was  a  small  cabinet  organ,  and  Occi 
dent — triumphing  in  the  ubiquity  of  the  West 
ern  genius,  yet  somewhat  taken  back  by  this 
new  illustration  of  the  incongruities  it  some 
times  precipitated — read  upon  it  a  name  famil 
iar  to  his  earliest  years.  The  priest,  who  evi 
dently  conceived  it  an  impossibility  for  his 
beloved  instrument  to  be  guilty  of  a  discord  of 
any  kind  whatever,  pleaded  with  a  mute  but 
unmistakable  pathos  that  its  long  silence  might 
now  be  ended;  and  the  Princess,  motioning 
Pensieri-Vani  to  the  keyboard,  sang  this  poor 
solitary  a  churchly  little  air,  with  such  a 'noble 


98  A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION 

seriousness  and  such  a  gracious  simplicity  as 
to  move,  not  only  him,  but  all  the  others  too. 
Occident,  in  particular,  who  kept  within  him 
quite  unimpaired  his  full  share  of  that  fund  of 
sensibility  which  is  one  of  the  best  products  of 
Shelby  County,  and  who  would  have  given 
half  his  millions  just  then  to  have  been  able  to 
sit  down  and  play  the  simplest  tune,  implored 
Pensieri-Vani  in  looks,  if  not  in  words,  to  do 
for  him  what  he  himself  was  so  powerless  to 
compass;  and  the  Cavaliere,  who,  like  a  good 
and  true  musician,  preferred  support  from  the 
lowest  quarter  to  indifference  in  the  highest, 
kept  his  place  until  their  poor  host,  charmed, 
warmed  through  and  through,  attached  again 
to  the  great  body  of  humanity,  could  scarcely 
trust  himself  to  voice  his  thanks.  But  the 
Princess  whispered  in  the  Cavaliere's  ear,  as 
his  series  of  plain  and  simple  little  tunes  came 
to  an  end,  that  he  had  not  lost  since  she  last 
heard  him." 

There  is  nothing  finer  in  the  story  than  this, 
perhaps  nothing  quite  so  good,  though  all  of 
Pensie*ri-Vani's  journeys  are  fruitful  in  minute 


A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  99 

incidents  of  a  pleasant  and  picturesque  quality. 
It  is  curious,  too,  to  see  how  the  Chevalier, 
who,  except  for  that  catlike  scratching  about 
the  Aldines,  is  the  gentlest  and  least  hurtful 
of  men,  manifests  at  times  a  positive  impatience 
of  his  own  refined  and  peaceful  civilization,  a 
breathless  envy  of  sterner  races  and  of  stormier 
days.  When  he  discovers  the  tomb  of  the  old 
Etrurian  warrior,  he  is  abashed  and  humbled 
at  the  thought  of  that  fierce  spirit  summoned 
from  thirty  centuries  of  darkness  to  see  the 
light  of  this  invertebrate  and  sentimental  age; 
requested  to  forget  his  deep  draughts  of  blood 
and  iron,  and  to  contentedly  "  munch  the 
dipped  toast  of  a  flabby  humanitarianism,  and 
sip  the  weak  tea  of  brotherly  love."  When  he 
stands  in  the  dim  cathedral  of  Anagni,  and 
contemplates  the  tombs  of  the  illustrious  Gae- 
tani  family,  and  the  mosaics  which  blazon  forth 
their  former  splendors,  he  shrinks  with  sudden 
shame  from  the  contrast  between  his  feeble, 
forceless  will  and  the  rough  daring  of  that 
mighty  clan.  "The  stippling  technique  of  his 
own  day  seemed  immeasurably  poor  and  paltry 


IOO  A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION 

compared  with  the  broad,  free,  sketchy  touch 
with  which  these  men  dashed  off  their  stirring 
lives;  and  he  stood  confounded  before  that  fi 
ery  and  robust  intensity  which,  so  gloriously  in 
different  to  the  subtilties  of  the  grammarian, 
the  niceties  of  the  manicure,  and  the  torments 
of  the  supersensitive  self-analyst,  could  fix  its 
intent  upon  some  definite  desire,  and  move  for 
ward  unswervingly  to  its  attainment.  Poor 
moderns  !  he  sighed,  who  with  all  our  wish 
ing  never  reach  our  end,  and  with  all  our  think 
ing  never  know  what  we  really  think." 

These  unprofitable  musings  of  the  Chevalier's 
seem  to  reflect  some  recurring  discontent,  some 
restless,  unchastened  yearnings  on  the  part  of 
the  author  himself;  but  they  find  no  echo  in  the 
serene  breast  of  the  Prorege.  He  at  least  is  as 
remote  from  envying  the  hostilities  of  the  past 
as  he  is  innocent  of  aspiring  to  the  progres- 
siveness  of  the  future.  He  is  fully  alive  to  the 
merits  of  his  own  thrice-favored  land,  where 
the  evil  devices  of  a  wrong-headed  generation 
have  never  been  suffered  to  penetrate:  "  Arco- 
pia,  the  gods  be  praised,  was  exempt  from  the 


A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  lOt' 

modern  curse  of  bigness.  One  chimney  was 
not  offensive;  but  a  million  made  a  London. 
One  refuse-heap  could  be  tolerated;  but  accu 
mulated  thousands  produced  a  New  York.  A 
hundred  weavers  in  their  own  cottages  meant 
peaceful  industry  and  home  content;  a  hundred 
hundred,  massed  in  one  great  factory,  meant 
vice  and  squalor  and  disorder.  Society  had 
never  courted  failure  or  bid  for  misery  more  ar 
dently  than  when  it  had  accepted  an  urban  in 
dustrialism  for  a  basis.  .  .  .  Happily  the 
Arcopian  population,  except  a  fraction  that  fol 
lowed  the  arts  and  another  fraction  that  fol 
lowed  the  sea,  was  largely  agricultural,  and  ex 
hibited  in  high  union  the  chief  virtue  and  the 
chief  grace  of  civilized  society — order  and  pic- 
turesqueness.  The  disturbing  and  ungracious 
catch-word,  '  Egalite,'  had  never  crossed  the 
Arcopian  sea;  if  the  Prorege  had  not  been  tol 
erably  sure  that  his  mild  sway  was  to  be  un 
disturbed  by  the  clangor  of  cantankerous  boil 
er-makers  and  the  bickerings  of  a  bumptious, 
shopkeeping  bourgeoisie,  he  would  never  have 
undertaken  the  task  at  all.  He  regarded  him- 


102.  A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION 

self  as  a  just,  humane,  and  sympathetic  ruler,  but 
he  believed  that  every  man  should  have  his 
own  proper  place  and  fill  it." 

Such  are  the  views  smilingly  detailed  to  the 
puzzled  and  outraged  Occident,  who,  having 
been  nourished  in  boyhood  on  the  discourses  of 
rustic  theologians,  and  the  forensics  of  Shelby- 
ville  advocates,  finds  it  difficult  to  assimilate 
his  own  theories  of  life  with  a  civilization  he 
so  imperfectly  understands.  He  doubts  his 
ability  to  take  the  European  attitude,  he  doubts 
the  propriety  of  the  attitude  when  taken,  and 
the  struggle  ends  in  the  usual  manner  by  his 
marrying  a  wife,  and  going  back  to  Shelby 
County  to  be  a  good  citizen  for  the  rest  of  his 
days.  Hors-Concours,  mindful  of  the  duties 
entailed  on  the  proprietor  of  a  small  patrimony 
and  an  ancient  name,  espouses  with  becoming 
gravity  and  deliberation  the  Princess  Altis- 
simi.  The  Prorege  retires  to  Arcopia-  the 
blessed,  whither  we  would  fain  follow  him  if 
we  could;  and  Pensieri-Vani,  left  desolate  and 
alone,  consoles  himself  with  the  reflection  that 
life  has  many  sides,  and  that  Italy  has  not  yet 


A   BY-WAY   IN   FICTION  IO3 

given  up  to  him  all  she  has  to  give:  "  Others 
might  falter;  but  he  was  still  sufficient  unto 
himself,  still  master  of  his  own  time  and  his 
own  actions,  and  enamored  only  of  that  de 
lightful  land  whose  beauty  age  cannot  wither, 
and  whose  infinite  variety  custom  can  never 
stale." 


COMEDY  OF  THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE 

*  I  ^HERE  is  no  place  in  the  world  where  hu- 
-*-        man  nature  is  so  thoroughly  human  or 
so  purely  natural  as  on  the  New  York  docks, 
when  a  great  steamer  load  of  returning  travel 
ers  are  being  put  through    the  pewe-fortz~~et 
-dure-of    the    United     States    custom   house. 
Everybody  is  striving  to  play  a  part,  to  assume 
an  air  of  indifference  which  he  does  not  feel, 

*™^*w»  *        ***** 

and  of  innocence  which  he  knows  to  be  falla 
cious  ;  and,  like  Mrs.  Browning's  Masker, 
everybody  betrays_too  plainly  in  his  "  smiling 
face"  and  "jesting  bold"  the  anxiety  that 
preys  upon  his  vitals.  Packed  snugly  away  in 
that  wilderness  of  trunks  and  boxes  are  hun 
dreds,  nay,  thousands,  of  pretty  trifles,  which 
it  is  the  painful  duty  of  every  man,  and  the 
proud  ambition  of  every  woman,  to  carry  in 
iinscathedaftd  undetected.  The  frank,  shame 
less  delight  which  a  woman  takes  in  smuggling 
104 


COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE       IO5 

has  long  puzzled  the  male  moralist,  who,  fol 
lowing  the  intricacies  of  the  feminine  con 
science,  can  find  no  satisfactory  explanation 
of  this  by-path.  He  cannot  bring  her  to 
understand  why,  when  she  has  purchased  and 
paid  for  an  article,  it  should  not  be  hers  to 
take  where  she  likes,  to  deal  with  as  she 
pleases ;  and  a  dozen  discourses  on  political 
economy  and  the  laws  of  nations  leave  her  un 
shaken  in  this  simple  and  primitive  conception. 
As  the  English  are  said  to  argue  best  in  pla 
toons,  so  a  woman  argues  best  in  action ;  and, 
while  her  husband  or  brother  is  proving  to  her 
in  the  clearest  possible  fashion  that  a  high  pro 
tective  tariff  is  a  blessing  to  the  land,  she  is 
assiduously  storing  away  embroidered  table 
covers,  and  silk  stockings,  and  silver  spoons, 
and  tortoise-shell  combs,  and  tiny  jeweled 
pins,  and  bits  of  frail  Venetian  glass,  wherever 
her  practiced  eye  tells  her  they  will  best  escape 
detection.  ^In  the  abstract,  of  course,  dear 
Edwin  is  right — he  always  is — but  she  is  far 
too  busy  with  her  task  to  enter  into  abstrac 
tions  just  now.  Whatever  mental  subtlety  she 


IO6       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM    HOUSE 

possesses  is  reserved  for  a  much  more  impor 
tant  ordeal — that  of  getting  clear,  with  a  clean 
conscience,  from  the  searching  questions  of  the 
inspector.  "  When  I  am  asked  if  I  have  any 
presents  I  always  answer  no,"  said  a  devout, 
church-going  woman  to  me  one  day,  "be 
cause  I  do  not  consider  them  presents  until  I 
give  them  away." 

The  grim,  perplexed  seriousness  with  which 
the  customs  officers  play  their  part  makes  a 
delightful  foil  (for  the  spectators)  to  the  nim 
ble,  elusive  mental  movements  of  their  adver 
saries;  and  it  is  in  the  conflict  between  aggress 
or  and  aggrieved,  between  invader  and  invaded, 
that  the  humors  of  our  great  national  institu 
tion  develop  their  choicest  bloom.  The  for 
tunes  of  war  which  recently  delayed  my  own 
boxes  and  my  hoped-for  escape,  gave  me,  by 
way  of  compensation,  an  easy  opportunity  of 
observing  and  enjoying  the  experiences  of 
other  people,  and  I  was  encouraged  in  my  di 
version  by  the  too  evident  glee  of  one  of  the 
minor  actors  in  the  strife.  She  was  a  very, 
pretty  girl,  this  gay  young  combatant,  not 


COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM    HOUSE       IO/ 

more  than  sixteen  years  old,  and  she  sat  kick 
ing  her  heels  on  somebody  else's  trunk,  while 
she  watched  with  enviable  composure  the  over 
hauling  of  her  own.  I  had  seen  her  often  dur 
ing  the  homeward  voyage,  and  had  spoken  to 
her  once  or  twice  as  she  tripped  endlessly  up 
and  down  the  deck  in  company  with  every  man 
and  boy  on  board;  taking  them  impartially, 
one  by  one,  and  seeming  to  be  on  the  same 
mysterious  terms  of  intimacy  with  all.  She 
had  a  traveling  companion  in  the  shape  of  a 
mother  who  adored  her  fretfully,  and  whom  she 
treated  with  finely  mingled  affection  and  con 
tempt.  She  never  spoke  of  this  relative  with 
out  the  prefix  "poor."  "  Poor  mother  is  aw 
fully  sick  to-day,"  she  would  sayujaJh£r--'SkrirH, 
high-pitched  voice, jwit]La_laiigh  which  showed 
all  her  little  white  teeth,  and  sounded  a  trifle 
unsympathetic  in  our  earsjBut  five  minutes 
later  she  was  helping  "poor  mother"  to  her 
steamer  chair,  wrapping  her  up  skilfully  in 
half  a  dozen  rugs  and  shawls,  bullying  the  deck 
steward  to  bring  her  some  hot  bouillon,  bully 
ing  her  to  drink  the  bouillon  when  brought, 


IO8       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE 

listening  to  her  manifold  complaints  with  an 
indulgent  smile,  and  flatly  refusing  to  obey, 
when  entreated  to  put  on  a  warmer  jacket. 
•  "  Poor  mother  is  always  worrying  about 
wraps,"  was  her  only  acknowledgment  of  the 
maternal  solicitude;  and  even  this  remark  was 
made,  not  to  her  prostrate  parent,  but  to  the 
youth  who  was  waiting  to  bear  her  away. 

The  pair  had  been  traveling  alone  all  sum 
mer,  but  were  met  on  the  docks  by  a  person 
whom  they  both  called  "  cousin  Jim,"  and  who 
assured  them  in  a  hearty,  offhand  manner  that 
he  would  have  them  safe  through  the  custom 
house  in  five  minutes;  a  miscalculation,  as  it 
turned  out,  of  quite  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 
Malignant  fate  assigned  them  an  inspector  who 
settled  down  to  his  search  like  an  Indian  to 
the  war  trail,  and  who  seemed  possessed  with 
the  idea  that  the  wealth  of  the  Indies  lay  se 
creted  somewhere  in  those  two  shabby,  travel- 
worn  boxes.  Whether  this  man  was  really 
enamored  of  his  disagreeable  task,  whether 
he  conscientiously  believed  that  the  United 
States  would  be  impoverished  and  her  indus- 


COMEDY   OF  THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE       109 

tries  crippled  by  the  contents  of  that  modest 
luggage,  or  whether  he  had  been  too  pliable 
on  former  occasions,  and  seized  this  chance  to 
assert  his  general  incorruptibility,  it  would  be 
hard  to  determine;  but  while  older  and  less 
ardent  officials  lifted  out  trays  and  turned  over 
corners  in  a  purely  perfunctory  manner,  seeing 
nothing,  and  seekjng  to  see  nothing  of  what 
lay  beneath,  this  rod  'hot  zealot  went  thorough 
ly  and  exhaustively  to  work  upon  the  limited 
materials  before  him.  Now  the  particular  irri 
tation  of  the  custom  house  lies,  not  in  the  fact 
of  your  trunk  being  searched,  but  of  your  neigh 
bor's  trunk  escaping;  and  the  sharpest  sting  is 
when  you  chance  to  know  that  your  neighbor 
is  carrying  in  unmolested  ten  times  the  value 
of  your  dutiable  articles.  If  Miss  Maisie,  kick 
ing  her  heels  and  smiling  affably,  did  not  real 
ize  the  hardship  of  her  position,  Miss  Mai- 
sie's  mother — she  never  had  any  other  name, 
her  sole  claim  to  distinction  resting  on  her 
daughter  —  felt  it  very  keenly.  She  stood, 
anxious  and  angry,  by  the  side  of  the  in 
spector,  protesting  fretfully  at  each  new  in- 


1 10       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM    HOUSE 

road,  and  appealing  for  sympathy  to  her  com 
panions. 

"  It's  a  perfect  shame,  the  way  he  has  rum 
pled  your  dresses,  Maisie,  and  upset  that  tray 
you  packed  so  nice  and  close.  You  will  never 
be  able  to  get  the  things  back  again  in  the 
world,  and,  if  you  do,  one  half  of  them  will  be 
broken  before  we  reach  home.  And  there's 
your  new  fur  cape  all  out  of  fold.  I  told  you 
to  wear  it,  or  carry  it  in  on  your  arm.  No  ! 
that  is  not  a  present;  at  least  I  think  not,  is  it, 
Maisie  ? "  as  a  small  brown  paper  parcel,  care 
fully  tied,  was  held  up  by  the  inspector  for 
scrutiny. 

"I  can't  tell  till  I  open  it,"  said  the  girl, 
reaching  over,  and  very  deliberately  unfasten 
ing  the  string.  "  You  don't  remember  what 
this  is,  do  you,  mother  ?  Oh  !  I  see — a  piece 
of  camphor.  No,  it's  not  a  present.  We 
brought  it  from  America.  Lasts  beautifully, 
doesn't  it  ?  "  returning  the  parcel  with  a  smile. 
"  Would  you  mind  wrapping  it  up  again  ?  It's 
so  very  hard  to  tie  anything  in  gloves." 

Apparently  the  inspector  did  mind,  for  he 


COMEDY   OF  THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE       III 

jerked  th'e  lump  of  camphor  unwrapped  into 
the  trunk,  and  made  a  vicious  scoop  among 
the  layers  of  neatly  pack^l  clothing.  "  Is  this 
a  present,  then  ?  "  he  asked,  drawing  to  light  a 
flat  oblong  white  box,  and  snapping  the  cord 
that  bound  it.  Inside,  resting  on  pink  cotton 
wool,  was  a  small  silver-backed  hand-mirror  of 
fine  workmanship.  "Surely  this  must  be  a  pres 
ent  ?  "  he  repeated,  with  the  triumphant  air  of 
one  who  has  dragged  a  secret  crime  to  justice. 

Maisie's  mother  looked  nervous,  and  fidgeted 

i 

visibly,  but  Maisie  herself  was  imperturbable, 
"  You  are  mistaken;  it  is  not,"  s4te~sard,  with 
out  a  tremor. 

The  man  glanced  at  her  sharply,  and 
shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  You  keep  it  very 
nicely  put  away  for  an  article  in  use,"  he  hint 
ed,  turning  over  the  box  once  or  twice  with 
manifest  doubt  and  reluctance.  "  And  these — 
are  all  these  your  own,  too  ? "  unearthing  from 
some  secret  receptacle  six  little  card-cases  of 
blue  leather,  and  spreading  them  out  jeeringly 
in  a  row. 

"  I  told  you  not  to  get  so  many,  Maisie,  but 


112       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE 

you  would  do  it,"  said  her  mother,  in*he  hope 
less  tone  of  a  convicted  criminal. 

"  They  were  such  bargains,  I  couldn't  resist 
them,"  answered  the*  girl  so*£owfo44y.  "Yes, 
they  are  presents;  at  least  five  of  them  are.  I 
guess  I  will  keep  one  for  myself,  and  save  that, 
any  way.  Just  put  one  of  them  back,  please. 
And  oh,  dear  !  do  you  have  to  lift  out  that 
heavy  tray  ?  There  are  nothing  but  clothes  at 
the  bottom  of  the  trunk." 

"  Nothing  at  all  but  clothes,"  interposed  her 
mother  peevishly.  "  I  don't  see  why  you  have 
to  go  through  everything  in  this  fashion." 

"  Nothing  at  all  but  clothes,"  repeated  cous 
in  Jim,  who  had  hitherto  stood  staring  silently 
at  the  confusion  before  him.  "  Can't  you  take 
the  ladies'  word  for  it,  when  they  assure  you 
there  is  nothing  underneath  but  clothes  ? " 

"My  dear  sir,"  said  the  inspector,  exasper 
ated  into  insolence,  "  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
take  any  lady's  word,  but  I  can't.  I've  learned 
a  great  deal  better." 

Maisie's  mother  colored  hotly,  with  the  right 
eous  indignation  of  a  woman  who  lies  easily, 


COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM    HOUSE       113 

and  is  accused  of  falsehood;  butMaisie,  screw 
ing  her  pretty  head  on  one  side,  winked  at 
me  in  shameless  enjoyment  of  the  situation. 
"  He'll  find  I'm  right  this  time,"  she  whispered; 
"  but  wasn't  it  lucky  he  got  it  into  his  stupid 
brain  that  the  glass  must  be  a  present !  If  he 
had  said  '  commission '  now,  I  should  have 
been  caught,  and  the  friend  I  bought  it  for 
would  be  simply  furious  if  I  had  to  pay  duty  on 
it.  Poor  mother  insisted  that  I  should  not 
take  a  single  commission  this  summer,  so  I 
only  have  very  few;  just  that  glass,  and  some 
gloves,  of  course,  and  a  feather  collar,  and  half 
a  dozen  pairs  of  stockings,  and  a  little  silk 
shawl  from  Rome.  One  girl  did  ask  me  to  buy 
her  a  dress  in  Paris,  but  I  wouldn't  do  it;  and 
another  wanted  a  pair  of  blue  slippers,  but  for 
tunately  I  forgot  her  size;  and  another — " 

"  Maisie,  dear,  do  put  back  your  things  now," 
interrupted  her  unhappy  parent,  who  by  this 
time  was  on  the  verge  of  tears.  "The  inspec 
tor  has  finished  with  your  trunk,  and  is  going 
to  mine.  And  please  be  careful  of  your  cape  ! 
I  wish  you  had  worn  it  instead — " 


114       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM    HOUSE 

"  Instead  of  my  old  one  ?  "  said  the  girl  has 
tily,  smoothing  down,  as  she  spoke,  a  very 
handsome  and  palpably  new  piece  of  sealskin 
on  her  shoulders.  "  Poor  mother  is  so  blun 
dering,"  she  sighed  softly  in  my  ear.  "  I  am 
wearing  this  cape  for  Dr.  Hunsdale.  He  is 
bringing  it  home  to  his  sister,  and  of  course 
wouldn't  have  any  shadow  of  a  chance  with  it 
himself.  Indeed,  he  intended  to  declare  it, 
which  would  have  been  a  dreadful  shame.  So 
I  just  offered  to  pack  mine  and  wear  this  one. 
Lots  of  girls  do,  you  know.  I've  got  a  watch 
here  for  another  man,  too,"  lightly  touching 
the  chatelaine  by  her  side.  "  Not  a  gold  one. 
Only  a  little  silver  thing  he  bought  for  his  sis 
ter,  who  is  a  child.  Poor  mother  doesn't  know 
about  that,  or  she  would  be  more  miserable 
still;  and  she  is  pretty  miserable  now,  isn't 
she  ? "  contemplating  her  perturbed  relative 
with  gentle  disfavor.  "You  see,  she  worries 
so,  she  makes  that  man  believe  we  have  some 
thing  tremendously  valuable  somewhere,  and 
he  is  bent  on  finding  it  out.  There,  he's  after 
our  Roman  blankets;  but  those  are  for  our- 


COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE       11$ 

selves,  and, what  ia  more,"  raising  her  voice, "  we 
have  had  them  in  use  for  nearly  three  months." 

"  Three  months  isn't  long  enough,"  returned 
the  official  surlily.  "  You  must  have  had  them 
in  use  a  year,  to  bring  them  in  free." 

"  A  year  !  "  echoed  Maisie,  opening  her  round 
eyes  with  innocent  amazement.  "  If  you  knew 
much  about  Roman  blankets,  you  wouldn't  ex 
pect  anybody  to  use  them  for  a  year,  and  then 
think  them  worth  bringing  home.  What  a  thrif 
ty  lot  the  custom-house  people  must  be  !  Poor 
mother  !  She  never  expected  to  pay  for  those, 
and  it  does  seem  a  little  hard  on  her.  But 
what's  that  he's  got  now  ?  Oh  !  do  look  !  "  for 
the  inspector  had  grabbed  something  loosely 
wrapped  in  white  tissue  paper,  and  was  hold 
ing  it  aloft  with  an  exultant  shake,  and  an 
"  I've-tracked-you-at-last"  expression.  Down 
fell  a  rubber  shoe,  of  unmistakable  American 
manufacture,  but  richly  crusted  with  layers  of 
foreign  mud.  It  flopped  modestly  into  the  bot 
tom  of  the  trunk,  and  was  greeted  with  a  ring 
ing  laugh  of  genuine,  uncontrolled  delight. 
"That's  a  present,"  sobbed  the  girl,  literally 


Il6       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE 

choking  with  mirth,  "  and  very  valuable.  We 
brought  it  from  the  South  Kensington,  and  are 
going  to  send  it  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
as  soon  as  we  reach  home." 

"  Maisie,  how  can  you  be  so  foolish  !  "  pro 
tested  her  mother,  roused  by  desperation  to 
some  faint  semblance  of  authority,  and  visibly 
anxious  to  propitiate  the  inspector,  who  looked 
ominously  angry.  "  If  you  will  wrap  such  ab 
surd  things  in  white  tissue  paper,  naturally 
people  think  they  are  of  some  value." 

"  But  we  had  so  much  tissue  paper  in  Lon 
don,  and  nothing  else  to  wrap  with,"  was  the 
very  reasonable  reply.  "  Fifteen  sheets  the 
tailor  sent  home  with  my  one  frock,  and  I  am 
keeping  most  of  it  to  use  at  Christmas  time. 
Poor  old  shoe  !  "  lifting  it  tenderly  out  of  the 
trunk;  "  if  mud  were  a  dutiable  article — and  I 
only  wonder  it  isn't — you  would  come  very 
expensive  just  now.  Swiss  mud,  too,  I  do  be 
lieve,  never  brushed  off  since  that  day  at  Grin- 
delwald,  and  quite  a  relic.  Don't  you  think," 
turning  suddenly  to  me,  "  don't  you  really 
think  all  this  is  fearfully  funny  ? " 


COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE       1 1/ 

In  one  sense  I  did,  though  the  fun  was  of  a 
strictly  esoteric  character,  not  appealing  broad 
ly  to  the  crowd.  But  then  Mr.  Saintsbury  as 
sures  us  that  real  fun  seldom  does.  Poor  mo 
ther's  sense  of  humor  was  plainly  unequal  to 
the  demand  made  upon  it;  cousin  Jim,  who 
had  not  spoken  since  his  first  repulse,  looked 
more  bewildered  than  amused;  and  even  the 
inspector  did  not  seem  vastly  entertained  by 
the  situation.  The  trunks  had  been  examined, 
and  their  contents  sadly  disarranged;  the 
handbags  searched,  and  found  to  contain  only 
toilet  articles  and  underwear;  the  steamer  rugs, 
unrolled,  revealed  nothing  more  precious  than 
an  old  magazine  and  four  battered  French 
novels.  As  a  result  of  over  half  an  hour's  in 
quisition,  the  authorities  had  possessed  them 
selves  of  two  well-worn  Roman  blankets,  a 
pretty,  inexpensive  little  fan,  painted  on  brown 
linen,  a  beer  mug  e£-Mimieh  ware,  and  those 
five  blue  card-cases  that  had  been  so  cheap  in 
Paris.  It  hardly  seemed  as  if  the  spoils  were 
worth  the  conflict,  or  as  if  the  three  dollars  and 
ninety  cents  duty  charged  on  them  could  be  a 


Il8       COMEDY   OF   THE   CUSTOM   HOUSE 

serious  addition  to  the  revenues  of  the  United 
States.  But  the  home-coming  of  one  poor 
woman  had  been  marred,  and  no  salt-tax  of 
ancient  France  was  ever  paid  with  more  mani 
fest  reluctance  and  ill-will. 

"  It's  the  burning  injustice  of  the  thing  I 
mind,  Maisie,"  was  the  vehement  protest  hurled 
at  the  inspector's  back.  "  There  were  plenty 
of  people  all  around  whose  trunks  were  hardly 
touched.  I  watched  one  man  myself,  and  he 
never  lifted  out  a  single  thing — just  turned  the 
corners  a  little,  and  smoothed  all  down  again. 
He  was  examining  the  Hardings's  luggage,  too, 
and  I  know  they  have  five  times  as  much  as 
we  have — really  costly,  beautiful  things — and 
they  never  paid  a  cent." 

"  But  we  didn't  pay  a  great  deal,"  returned 
the  girl  cheerfully.  She  was  down  on  her  knees 
now,  deftly  rearranging  the  disordered  trunks. 
"  Think  of  all  our  man  might  have  found,  and 
did  n't." 

"  Think  of  the  shameful  condition  he  left  our 
clothes  in  !  "  said  her  angry  mother.  "  It  is  an 
outrage.  And  those  blankets  !  Everybody 


COMEDY  OF  THE  CUSTOM   HOUSE       119 

brings  them,  and  nobody  but  ourselves  has  to 
pay.  The  Hardings  had  them,  I  know,  and  so 
did  Miss  Rebecca  Chambers,  and  Mrs.  Starr; 
and  they  all  came  in  free." 

"  Yes,  but  Mr.  Maitland  was  charged  four 
dollars  duty  on  a  pair  he  bought  for  twenty 
shillings  in  London,  and  he  presented  them  to 
the  custom-house  officers  rather  than  give  their 
value  over  again,"  said  Maisie  triumphantly. 

"  Did  he,  really  ?"  cried  her  mother,  bright 
ening  up  wonderfully  under  the  beneficent  in 
fluence  of  other  people's  misfortunes.  "  What 
a  shame  !  Four  dollars  duty  on  twenty-shil 
ling  blankets  !  I  never  heard  of  anything  so 
preposterous." 

"  Yes,  and  Dr.  Carson  gave  them  a  silver 
watch  he  had  brought  over  for  his  little  boy, 
rather  than  pay  the  duty  on  that,  it  was  so 
high,"  continued  Maisie,  who  seemed  to  know 
the  fate  and  fortunes  of  every  passenger  on 
board. 

Her  mother's  face  relaxed  from  fretfulness 
into  smiles.  "  I  wonder  he  doesn't  sue  the  gov 
ernment,  or  something,"  she  remarked,  with 


120       COMEDY  OF  THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE 

feminine  vagueness.  "  I  am  sure  I  should.  It 
is  a  good  thing,  Maisie,  we  had  no  watches  to 
bring." 

The  girl  chuckled  softly,  and  shook  the  little 
chatelaine  by  her  side.  "Yes,  it  is  a  good 
thing,"  she  said,  with  an  air  of  simple  convic 
tion.  "  After  all,  we  did  get  off  pretty  cheap. 
And  it  was  almost  worth  the  money  to  see  the 
delicious  flourish  with  which  that  muddy  old 
overshoe  tumbled  on  the  scene.  Don't  you 
think,"  turning  once  more  appealingly  to  me, 
"  that  three  dollars  and  ninety  cents  was  little 
enough  to  pay  for  such  a  sight  ?  " 

Perhaps  I  did.  A  laugh  is  always  worth  its 
price,  and  in  these  serious  days  grows  rare  at 
any  figure.  Besides,  when  a  great  republic  con 
descends  to  play  an  active  part  in  even  an  in 
different  comedy,  it  is  ill-timed  to  grumble  at 
the  cost. 


MR.  WILDE'S  INTENTIONS 

EVER  since  the  first  printers  with  mis 
guided  zeal  dipped  an  innocent  world 
in  ink,  those  books  have  been  truly  popular 
which  reflected  faithfully  and  enthusiastically 
the  foibles  and  delusions  of  the  hour.  This 
is  what  is  called  "  keeping  abreast  with  the 
spirit  of  the  times,"  and  we  have  only  to  look 
around  us  at  present  to  see  the  principle  at 
work.  With  an  arid  and  dreary  realism  chilling 
us  to  the  heart,  and  sad-voiced  novelists  entreat 
ing  us  at  every  turn  to  try  to  cultivate  indecorous 
conduct  and  religious  doubts,  fiction  has  ceased 
to  be  a  medium  of  delight.  Even  nihilism, which 
is  the  only  form  of  relief  that  true  earnestness 
permits,  is  capable  of  being  overstrained,  and 
some  narrowly  conservative  people  are  begin 
ning  to  ask  themselves  already  whether  this 
new  development  of  "  murder  as  a  fine  art " 
has  not  been  sufficiently  encouraged.  Out  of 


122  MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS 

the  midst  of  the  gloom,  out  of  the  confusion 
and  depression  of  conflicting  forms  of  serious 
ness,  rises  from  London  a  voice,  clear,  languid, 
musical,  shaken  with  laughter,  and  speaking 
in  strange,  sweet  tones  of  art  and  beauty,  and 
of  that  finer  criticism  which  is  one  with  art 
and  beauty,  and  claims  them  forever  as  its 
own.  The  voice  comes  from  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde, 
and  few  there  are  who  listen  to  him,  partly 
because  his  philosophy  is  alien  to  our  preva 
lent  modes  of  thought,  and  partly  because  of 
the  perverse  and  paradoxical  fashion  yi  which 
he  delights  to  give  it  utterance.  People  are 
more  impressed  by  the  way  a  thing  is  said 
than  by  the  thing  itself.  A  grave  arrogance 
of  demeanor,  a  solemn  and  self-assertive  meth 
od  of  reiterating  an  opinion  until  it  grows 
weighty  with  words,  are  weapons  more  con 
vincing  than  any  subtlety  of  argument.  "  As 
I  have  before  expressed  to  the  still  reverber 
ating  discontent  of  two  continents  " — this  is  the 
mode  in  which  the  public  loves  to  have  a  state 
ment  offered  to  its  ears,  that  it  may  gape,  and 
wonder,  and  acquiesce. 


MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS  123 

Nothing  can  be  further  from  such  admirable 
solidity  than  Mr.  Wilde's  flashing  sword-play, 
than  the  glee  with  which  he  makes  out  a  case 
against  himself,  and  then  proceeds  valiantly 
into  battle.  There  are  but  four  essays  in  the 
volume,  rather  vaguely  called  Intentions ,2&&  of 
these  four  only  two  have  real  and  permanent 
value.  "  The  Truth  of  Masks  "  is  a  somewhat 
trivial  paper,  inserted  apparently  to  help  fill  up 
the  book,  and  "  Pen,  Pencil,  and  Poison  "  is  vis 
ibly  lacking  in  sincerity.  The  author  plays  with 
his  subject  very  much  as  his  subject,  "  kind, 
light-hearted  Wainwright,"  played  with  crime, 
and  in  both  cases  there  is  a  subtle  and  discord 
ant  element  of  vulgarity.  It  is  not  given  to  our 
eminently  respectable  age  to  reproduce  the 
sumptuous  and  horror-laden  atmosphere  which 
lends  an  artistic  glamor  to  the  poisonous  court 
of  the  Medicis.  This  "study  in  green  "  contains, 
however,  some  brilliant  passages,  and  at  least 
one  sentence — "  The  domestic  virtues  are  not 
the  true  basis  of  art,  though  they  may  serve  as 
an  excellent  advertisement  for  second-rate 
artists  " — that  must  make  Mr.  George  Moore 


124  MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS 

pale  with  envy, when  he  reflects  that  he  missed 
saying  it,  where  it  belongs,  in  his  clever, 
truthful,  ill-natured  paper  on  "  Mummer-Wor 
ship." 

The  significance  and  the  charm  of  Mr. 
Wilde's  book  are  centred  in  its  opening  chap 
ter,  "  The  Decay  of  Lying,"  reprinted  from 
The  Nineteenth  Century,  and  in  the  long  two- 
part  essay,  entitled  "  The  Critic  as  Artist," 
which  embodies  some  of  his  most  thoughtful, 
serious,  and  scholarly  work.  My  own  ineffable 
content  rests  with  "  The?Decay  of  Lying,"  be 
cause,  under  its  transparent  mask  of  cynicism, 
its  wit,  its  satire,  its  languid  mocking  humor, 
lies  clearly  outlined  a  great  truth  that  is  slip 
ping  fast  away  from  us — the  absolute  inde 
pendence  of  art — art  nourished  by  imagination 
and  revealing  beauty.  This  is  the  hand  that 
gilds  the  grayness  of  the  world;  this  is  the 
voice  that  sings  in  flute  tones  through  the  si 
lence  of  the  ages.  To  degrade  this  shining 
vision  into  a  handmaid  of  nature,  to  maintain 
that  she  should  give  us  photographic  pictures 
of  an  unlovely  life,  is  a  heresy  that  arouses  in 

I 


MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS  12$ 

Mr.  Wilde  an  amused  scorn  which  takes  the 
place  of  anger.  "  Art,"  he  says,  "  never  ex 
presses  anything  but  itself.  It  has  an  inde 
pendent  life,  just  as  Thought  has,  and  develops 
purely  on  its  own  lines.  It  is  not  necessarily 
realistic  in  an  age  of  realism,  nor  spiritual  in 
an  age  of  faith.  So  far  from  being  the  creation 
of  its  time,  it  is  usually  in  direct  opposition  to 
it,  and  the  only  history  that  it  preserves  for  us 
is  the  history  of  its  own  progress."  That  we 
should  understand  this,  it  is  necessary  to  un 
derstand  also  the  "beautiful  untrue  things" 
which  exist  only  in  the  world  of  fancy;  the 
things  that  are  lies,  and  yet  help  us  to  endure 
the  truth.  Mr.  Wilde  repudiates  distinctly  and 
almost  energetically  all  lying  with  an  object, 
all  sordid  trifling  with  a  graceful  gift.  The 
lies  of  newspapers  yield  him  no  pleasure;  the 
lies  of  politicians  are  ostentatiously  unconvin 
cing;  the  lies  of  lawyers  are  "  briefed  by  the 
prosaic."  He  reviews  the  world  of  fiction  with 
a  swift  and  caustic  touch;  he  lingers  among 
the  poets;  he  muses  rapturously  over  those 
choice  historic  masterpieces,  from  Herodotus 


126  MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS 

to  Carlyle,  where  "  facts  are  either  kept  in 
their  proper  subordinate  position,  or  else  en 
tirely  excluded  on  the  general  ground  of  dul- 
ness."  He  laments  wfth  charming  frankness 
the  serious  virtues  of  his  age.  "  Many  a  young 
man,"  he  says,  "  starts  in  life  with  a  natural 
gift  for  exaggeration,  which,  if  nurtured  in  con 
genial  and  sympathetic  surroundings,  or  by 
the  imitation  of  the  best  models,  might  grow 
into  something  really  great  and  wonderful. 
But,  as  a  rule,  he  comes  to  nothing.  He  either 
falls  into  careless  habits  of  accuracy,  or  takes 
to  frequenting  the  society  of  the  aged  and  the 
well-informed.  Both  things  are  equally  fatal 
to  his  imagination,  and  in  a  short  time  he  de 
velops  a  morbid  and  unhealthy  faculty  of  truth- 
telling,  begins  to  verify  all  statements  made  in 
his  presence,  has  no  hesitation  in  contradicting 
people  who  are  much  younger  than  himself, 
and  often  ends  by  writing  novels  that  are  so 
like  life  that  no  one  can  possibly  believe  in 
their  probability."  Surely  this  paragraph  has 
but  one  peer  in  the  world  of  letters,  and  that 
is  the  immortal  sentence  wherein  De  Quincey 


MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS  I2/ 

traces  the  murderer's  gradual  downfall  to  in 
civility  and  procrastination. 

"The  Critic  as  Artist"  affords  Mr.  Wilde 
less  scope  for  his  humor  and  more  for  his  eru 
dition,  which,  perhaps,  is  somewhat  lavishly 
displayed.  Here  he  pleads  for  the  creative 
powers  of  criticism,  for  its  fine  restraints,  its 
imposed  self-culture,  and  he  couches  his  plea 
in  words  as  rich  as  music.  Now  and  then,  it 
is  true,  he  seems  driven  by  the  whips  of  our 
modern  Furies  to  the  verge  of  things  which  are 
not  his  to  handle — problems,  social  and  spir 
itual,  to  which  he  holds  no  key.  When  this 
occurs,  we  can  only  wait  with  drooping  heads, 
and  what  patience  we  can  muster,  until  he  is 
pleased  to  return  to  his  theme;  or  until  he  re 
members,  laughing,  how  fatal  is  the  habit  of 
imparting  opinions,  and  what  a  terrible  ordeal 
it  is  to  sit  at  table  with  the  man  who  has  spent 
his  life  in  educating  others  rather  than  himself. 
"  For  the  development  of  the  race  depends  on 
the  development  of  the  individual,  and  where 
self-culture  has  ceased  to  be  the  ideal,  the  in 
tellectual  standard  is  instantly  lowered,  and 


128  MR.  WILDE'S   INTENTIONS 

often  ultimately  lost."  I  like  to  fancy  the 
ghost  of  the  late  Rector  of  Lincoln,  of  him  who 
said  that  an  appreciation  of  Milton  was  the  re 
ward  of  consummate  scholarship,  listening  in 
the  Elysian  Fields,  and  nodding  his  assent  to 
this  much-neglected  view  of  a  much-disputed 
question.  Everybody  is  now  so  busy  teaching 
that  nobody  has  any  time  to  learn.  We  are 
growing  rich  in  lectures,  but  poor  in  scholars, 
and  the  triumph  of  mediocrity  is  at  hand.  Mr. 
Wilde  can  hardly  hope  to  become  popular  by 
proposing  real  study  to  people  burning  to  im 
part  their  ignorance;  but  the  criticism  that 
develops  in  the  mind  a  more  subtle  quality  of 
apprehension  and  discernment  is  the  criticism 
that  creates  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the 
age. 


HUMORS  OF  GASTRONOMY 

"r  I  ""HERE  does  not,  at  this  blessed  moment, 
••*•  breathe  on  the  earth's  surface  a  human 
being  that  willna  prefer  eating  and  drinking  to 
all  ither  pleasures  o'  body  or  soul."  So  speaks 
the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  in  the  fulness  of  his  con 
tent,  contemplating  with  moist  eyes  the  groan 
ing  supper-table,  laden  with  a  comfortable 
array  of  solid  viands;  after  .which  fair  and 
frank  expression  of  his  views  we  are  somewhat 
pained  to  hear  him  denouncing  in  no  measured 
terms  "  the  awful  and  fearsome  vice  o'  glut 
tony,"  as  evidenced  occasionally  in  women. 
His  companions,  too,  those  magnificent  fellow- 
feeders,  have  a  great  many  severe  things  to 
say  about  gudewives  who  betray  a  weakness 
for  roasted  pork,  or  an  unfeminine  solicitude  for 
gravy;  and  Mr.  Timothy  Tickler  unhesitating 
ly  affirms  that  such  a  one,  "  eating  for  the  sake 

of  eating,  and  not  for  mere  nourishment,  is,  in 
129 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

fact,  the  grossest  of  sensualists,  and  at  each 
mouthful  virtually  breaks  all  ten  of  the  com 
mandments."  This  is  the  language  of  an  as 
cetic  rather  than  of  a  bon  vivant,  but  we  are  in 
some  measure  reassured  when  the  same  Mr. 
Tickler  confesses,  a  little  later,  that,  although 
roast  goose  always  disagrees  with  him,  yet 
he  never  refuses  it,  believing  that  to  purchase 
pleasure  by  a  certain  degree  of  pain  is  true 
philosophy;  whereupon  the  Shepherd,  not  to 
be  outdone,  gives  it  as  his  unreserved  opinion 
that,  in  winter-time  at  least,  "  eating  for  eat 
ing's  sake,  and  in  oblivion  o'  its  feenal  cause, 
is  the  most  sacred  o'  household  duties." 

From  these  somewhat  inharmonious  senti 
ments  we  reluctantly  infer  that  gluttony  is  a 
vice — or  a  virtue — for  man  only,  and  that  wo 
man's  part  in  the  programme  is  purely  that  of 
a  ministering  angel.  Adam  was  made  to  eat, 
and  Eve  to  cook  for  him,  although,  even  in  this 
humble  sphere,  she  and  her  daughters  have 
been  doomed  to  rank  second  in  command. 
Excellent  in  all  things,  but  supreme  in  none, 
they  have  never  yet  scaled  the  dazzling 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY  131 

heights  of  culinary  fame.  The  records  of  an 
tiquity  make  no  mention  of  their  skill;  the 
middle  'ages  grant  them  neither  praise  nor 
honor;  and  even  as  late  as  Dr.  Johnson's  day 
they  labored  hard  for  scanty  recognition.  It 
is  very  painful  to  hear  the  great  sage  speaking 
lightly  of  our  grandmother's  oracle,  Mrs. 
Glasse,  and  declaring  with  robust  contempt 
that  women  were  fit  to  spin,  but  not  to  write  a 
book  of  cookery.  Yet  for  how  many  years  had 
they  modestly  held  their  peace;  profiting, 
doubtless,  in  many  a  roomy  kitchen  and  in 
many  a  well-stocked  buttery  by  the  words  of 
wisdom  which  vainglorious  men  let  fall;  and 
only  now  and  then  giving  help  and  counsel  to 
one  another  by  means  of  little  private  recipe- 
books,  which  were  circulated  among  a  few 
noble  families,  and  were  considered  as  their 
own  exclusive  property  and  pride. 

Opulence  and  a  taste  for  display,  upon  the 
one  side,  and  the  natural  conservatism  of  the 
great  Saxon  stock,  upon  the  other,  fought  the 
battle  of  the  table  from  the  days  of  the  Black 
Prince  down  to  those  of  Anthony  Trollope, 


132  HUMORS    OF   GASTRONOMY 

and  will,  in  all  probability,  fight  it  to  the  end. 
"  A  cod's  head  for  fourpence,  and  nine  shil 
lings'  worth  of  condiments  to  serve  with  it," 
was  the  favorite  sarcasm  which  greeted  the 
growing  extravagance  of  the  rich  middle 
classes.  Those  costly  "  subtleties  "  imported 
from  French  kitchens  in  the  fifteenth  century 
met  with  a  sturdy  opposition  from  British  free 
men,  who,  even  while  they  gaped  and  marvel 
ed,  resented  such  bewildering  innovations. 
The  pelican  sheltering  her  young,  and  Saint 
Catherine,  book  in  hand,  disputing  with  the 
doctors,  which  figured  among  the  dishes  at 
the  coronation  of  Henry  V.;  the  hundred  and 
four  "dressed"  peacocks,  trailing  their  plumes 
gorgeously  over  the  table  at  the  consecration 
of  Archbishop  Neville,  affronted  more  than 
one  beef-eating  gentleman,  and  exasperated 
more  than  one  porridge-eating  churl.  From 
France,  too,  came  certain  heresies  regarding 
the  fitness  of  food  which  Englishmen  had  for 
centuries  devoured  and  digested.  Queen 
Elizabeth  dined  upon  whale;  Cardinal  Wol- 
sey,  who  was  something  of  an  epicure,  and 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY  133 

who  first  taught  us  that  strawberries  and  cream 
were  intended  by  a  beneficent  nature  to  set  off 
each  other's  merits,  did  not  disdain  to  have  a 
young  porpoise  served  up  at  one  of  his  ban 
quets.  Fish  soup  was  a  delicacy,  and  we  are 
even  assured  by  antiquarians  that  the  gram 
pus,  or  sea-wolf,  was  freely  eaten  by  our 
strong-stomached  ancestors. 

But  foreign  cooks  looked  doubtfully  upon 
these  national  dainties,  and,  in  place  of  the 
old-time  gravies,  which  were  simply  the  broths 
in  which  meat  had  been  boiled,  flavored  with 
a  little  ginger  and  sugar,  delicate  and  highly 
seasoned  sauces  were  devised  for  the  tempting 
of  weary  appetites.  Italy  sent  forks — those 
curious  and  uncanny  implements — which  were 
received  with  scornful  indignation,  as  calcu 
lated  to  destroy  the  simplicity  and  manliness 
of  Great  Britain.  Spoons  and  knives  were 
held  in  slight  esteem,  for  good  soup  could  be- 
swallowed  from  the  bowl,  and  his  sacred  Maj 
esty,  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  was  not  the  only 
monarch  who  buttered  his  bread  with  his  royal 
thumb.  But  forks  were  contemptible  affecta- 


134  HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

tions.  As  honest  Master  Breton  observed,  he 
had  done  no  foul  work,  and  handled  no  un 
wholesome  thing,  and  consequently  had  no 
need  of  an  instrument  with  which  to  make  hay 
of  his  food  and  pitch  it  into  his  mouth.  So, 
too,  the  time-honored  custom  of  man  and  wife 
eating  out  of  one  trencher  was  falling  into 
rapid  disuse,  and  Walpole  tells  us  that  the  old 
Duke  and  Duchess  of  Hamilton  were  the  last 
couple  in  England  who  retained  the  fashion  of 
their  youth.  Meats  were  growing  daintier  and 
dearer  all  the  while.  The  ordinary  or  inn 
dinner,  which  in  Elizabeth's  day  cost  sixpence, 
had  risen  to  tenpence  in  the  reign  of  George  I., 
and  soon  crept  up  to  a  shilling.  In  every 
generation  there  were  plenty  of  grumblers  to 
lament  over  the  good  old  times  that  had  fled, 
and  we  catch  the  echo  of  this  undying  cry  in 
the  modern  protests  against  unwelcome  fash 
ions.  Thackeray  and  Trollope  railed  perpet 
ually  at  that  feeble  striving  after  an  impossible 
elegance  which  had  well-nigh  destroyed  the 
cheery  conviviality  of  their  youth  ;  and  Pea 
cock,  the  prince  of  good  livers,  with  whom  the 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY  135 

pleasures  of  the  intellect  and  the  appetite 
walked  amicably  hand  in  hand,  has  recorded 
his  still  more  vehement  denunciation:  "I  de 
test  and  abominate,"  says  Mr.  Macborrowdale, 
"  the  idea  of  a  Siberian  dinner,  where  you  just 
look  on  fiddle-faddles,  while  your  meal  is  be 
hind  a  screen,  and  you  are  served  with  rations 
like  a  pauper." 

The  scorn  of  the  true  Briton  for  alien  delica 
cies  was  repaid  with  interest  by  the  French 
man,  who  regarded  his  neighbor's  groaning 
table  very  much  as  we  might  regard  the  doubt 
ful  provender  of  a  cannibal  chief.  The  con 
tempt  for  frog-eating  foreigners,  on  the  one 
hand,  was  not  greater  than  the  contempt  for 
beef-eating  islanders,  on  the  other ;  in  fact,  all 
nations,  from  Egypt  down,  seem  to  have  cher 
ished  a  wholesome  dislike  and  distrust  for  each 
other's  food.  The  British  officer  who,  at  the 
attack  on  Cadiz,  shouted  to  his  men,  "You 
Englishmen,  who  are  fed  upon  beef,  don't  surely 

mean  to  be  beaten  by  a  d d  lot  of  Spaniards, 

who  live  on  oranges  !  "  made  a  stronger  appeal 
to  human  nature  than  did  Napoleon  with'  his 


136  HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

famous  "  forty  centuries  ;"  and  the  reverse  of 
the  medal  may  be  seen  in  Talleyrand's  de 
scription  of  England,  as  a  land  where  there 
were  twenty-four  religions  and  only  one  sauce. 
Twenty-four  religions  would  make  but  a  poor 
showing  in  these  days,  when  even  a  serious 
novel  can  beget  a  new  one  ;  but  sauces  are  not 
so  lightly  called  into  being.  Those  "slibber 
sops  "  which  brought  "  queesiness  to  the  stom 
ach  and  disquiet  to  the  mind  "  of  John  Lyly 
were  hard  to  rout  from  the  field ;  and  they 
were  still  holding  their  own  when  Brillat-Sav- 
arin,  the  most  serene  and  kindly  of  epicures, 
first  visited  Great  Britain.  With  Savarin,  eat 
ing  was  more  than  a  mere  vulgar  pleasure; 
it  was  a  solemn  and  yet  exquisite  duty  which 
man  owed  to  himself,  and  to  a  generous  nature 
that  had  yielded  him  up  her  bounties  for  this 
purpose.  Mr.  Birrell  says  that  Burke's  letters 
on  carrots  "tremble  with  emotion,"  and  there 
is  a  like  earnestness  about  all  of  Savarin's  rec 
ipes  ;  a  pathetic  anxiety  lest  some  ingredient 
should  be  omitted  or  ill-used.  For  fish  he 
entertains  a  profound  respect ;  for  game,  a 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY  137 

manly  affection  ;  for  pastries,  a  delicate  regard  ; 
but  truffles  are  the  beloved  darlings  of  his 
heart.  It  contents  him  greatly  to  sit  at  table 
with  congenial  spirits;  to  watch  "  the  eager 
ness  of  desire,  the  ecstasy  of  enjoyment,  and, 
finally,  the  perfect  repose  of  bliss  on  every 
countenance,"  when  the  noble  meal  is  ended. 
Surely  even  the  Reign  of  Terror  might  have 
dealt  tenderly  with  such  a  man  as  this,  since 
patriots  are  unswerving  eaters,  and  it  behooved 
them  to  remember  that  "the  discovery  of  a 
new  dish  does  more  for  the  happiness  of  man 
kind  than  the  discovery  of  a  new  planet." 

All  of  Savarin's  apothegms  evince  the  same 
frank  and  warm-hearted  regard  for  the  wel 
fare  of  others;  the  same  unremitting  anxiety 
to  teach  them  what  to  eat  and  how  to  eat  it. 
He  entreats  us  never  to  forget  that,  when  we 
have  invited  a  man  to  dine,  we  have,  for  a 
short  time  at  least,  his  happiness  in  our  hands. 
The  dinner  table,  he  reminds  us,  is  the  only 
place  where  men  are  not  hopelessly  bored  for 
the  first  hour,  and  during  that  hour  it  is  our 
privilege  to  make  them  enamored  of  life.  A 


138  HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

cook  is,  in  his  eyes,  a  true  scientist,  with 
mighty  capacities  for  good  and  evil,/  He  be 
lieves,  with  Baudelaire,  that  such  a  one  should 
have  the  soul  of  a  poet,  and — like  the  too  fas 
tidious  Parisian,  who  declared  that  between 
Mme.  du  Deffand's  chef  and  the  Marquise  de 
Brinvilliers  "there  was  only  the  difference  of 
intention  " — Savarin  has  no  words  of  reproach 
strong  enough  for  those  who  debase  and  shame 
their  noble  calling.  He  is  prompt  to  recognize 
the  exigencies  of  a  slender  purse,  and  unweary 
ing  in  his  efforts  to  provide  menus  fitted  to  its 
limitations;  but  his  notions  of  economy  are 
somewhat  like  those  of  the  little  French  prin 
cess,  who  said  that  rather  than  starve  she 
would  live  on  bread  and  cheese:  The  famous 
omelette  au  thon,  for  instance,  with  all  its  air 
of  pastoral  simplicity,  contains  the  roes  of  two 
carp,  a  piece  of  tunny,  an  eschalot,  twelve  eggs, 
and  a  number  of  other  ingredients  which 
would  hardly  recommend  it  to  a  poor  country 
parsonage.  As  for  the  Abbe  Chevrier's  spin 
ach,  which  was  warmed  up  with  butter  for 
seven  days  before  it  reached  the  acme  of  deli- 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

cacy,  we  can  only  wonder  at  the  admirable 
patience  of  the  Abbe's  cook,  who  would  return 
seven  times  with  unremitting  industry  to  the 
consideration  of  a  single  dish. 

It  will  be  observed,  however,  how  many  gas- 
tronomical  triumphs  we  owe  to  clerical  genius, 
or  to  the  researches  of  the  true  philosopher. 
Lord  Bacon  thought  it  no  shame  to  bend  his 
mighty  mind  to  kitchen  problems,  and  Dr. 
Nowel,  the  learned  and  pious  dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
was  rightfully  proud  of  the  bottled  beer  which 
he  first  gave  to  his  astonished  and  grateful 
country.  The  earliest  list  of  recipes  in  Eng 
land  was  the  work  of  an  archbishop.  The 
Jesuits  in  the  seventeenth  century  carried  the 
turkey  from'Yfcs  native  haunts,  and  introduced 
it  to  the  best  French  society,  who  received  it 
with  the  rapture  it  deserved.  The  famous 
mayonnaise  is  not  the  only  delicacy  which 
Richelieu  bequeathed  to  the  world  ;  Talley 
rand  devoted  one  hour  out  of  every  busy  day 
to  the  exclusive  companionship  of  his  cook  ; 
and  the  Regent  Orleans  was  pleased  to  give 
his  own  name  to  the  bread  of  his  own  baking. 


I4O  HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

What  a  kindly  spirit  of  good-fellowship  we 
discern  in  the  frank  epicureanism  of  Sydney 
Smith !  what  generous  sympathy  for  a  bon 
vivant  whose  lines  have  led  him  into  desert 
places  !  "  Luttrell  came  over  for  a  day,"  he 
writes,  "  from  whence  I  know  not,  but  I 
thought  not  from  good  quarters ;  at  least  he 
had  not  his  usual  soup  and  patti  look.  There 
was  a  forced  smile  upon  his  countenance  which 
seemed  to  indicate  plain  roast  and  boiled,  a 
sort  of  apple-pudding  depression,  as  if  he  had 
been  staying  with  a  clergyman."  How  credit 
able,  too,  is  his  anxiety  to  please  Luttrell, 
when  that  amiable  sybarite  becomes  his  guest ! 
"Mrs.  Sydney,"  he  declares,  "grows  pale  with 
alarm  as  the  rich  dishes  are  uncovered  ;  "  and 
yet  so  admirable  a  housewife  might  have  shared 
in  the  superb  confidence  of  Lord  Worcester 
when  cautioned  by  Sir  Henry  Halford  to  leave 
all  such  indiscreet  messes  alone.  "  Side 
dishes,"  said  the  great  physician,  "  are  poison." 
"  Yours  may  be,"  retorted  Lord  Worcester  ; 
"  and  I  should  never  dream  of  eating  them, 
but  mine  are  a  very  different  story."  So,  too, 


HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY  14! 

were  Sydney  Smith's,  and  the  celebrated  salad 
which  gained  for  him  nearly  as  wide  a  reputa 
tion  as  his  wit  was  only  one  of  many  famous 
recipes,  and  probably  no  greater  in  its  way 
than  the  mysterious  pudding  whose  secret  he 
imparted  as  an  especial  favor  to  the  importu 
nate  Lady  Holland.  Those  who  had  the  happi 
ness  of  sitting  at  his  table  rose  from  it  with 
tranquil  gratitude,  "serenely  full,"  and  con 
scious,  let  us  hope,  of  his  own  graceful  senti 
ment, 

"  Fate  cannot  harm  me — I  have  dined  to-day." 

There  is  one  more  subject  to  consider ;  one 
more  aspect  of  the  case,  fraught  with  tender 
and  melancholy  associations.  Like  the  lost 
joys  of  our  youth  ;  like  the  taste  for  apple- 
dumplings,  which  Lamb  recognized  as  belong 
ing  only  to  those  whose  innocence  was  unim 
paired  ;  like  the  vanishing  of  gentle  thoughts 
with  a  growing  distaste  for  asparagus ;  so  is 
the  sorrowful  blank  left  in  our  lives  by  the 
recollection  of  noble  dishes  that  have  been, 
and  that  are  no  longer.  What  of  that  lost  rec- 


142  HUMORS   OF   GASTRONOMY 

ipe  of  Menander's  for  fish  sauce — an  ambrosial 
sauce  whose  fame  has  flitted  down  to  us  from 
dim  ages,  and  the  eating  of  which  would  have 
'filled  to  the  brim  Dr.  Johnson's  cup  of  happi 
ness  3  And  what  of  its  modern  counterpart, 
also  gone  forever,  the  famous  green  sauce 
which  La  Coste  offered  to  Sir  Thomas  Dundas 
at  the  Duke  of  York's  table,  whispering  to 
him  with  unctuous  fervor,  "  Aveccette  sauce  la, 
on  pourrait  manger  son  grand-pere  "  ?  What 
of  the  bream-pie  that  disappeared  with  the 
good  monks,  driven  from  British  soil,  and  the 
mere  recollection  of  which  caused  Peacock  to 
bewail  in  spirit  the  too  rapid  dissolution  of  the 
monasteries  ?  And  what  of  sack — Falstaff's 
sack — that  made  England  the  merry  Eng 
land  of  yore,  and  that  took  flight,  like  some 
old-fashioned  genius,  before  the  sombre  days 
that  were  to  follow  ?  Surely  if  we  knew  its 
secret,  we  should  learn  how  to  laugh  once 
more. 

But  alas  !  this  may  not  be.  We  have  but 
the  memories  of  past  good  cheer  ;  we  have  but 
the  echoes  of  departed  laughter.  In  vain  we 


HUMORS  OF  GASTRONOMY  143 

look  and  listen  for  the  mirth  that  has  died 
away.  In  vain  we  seek  to  question  the  gray 
ghosts  of  old-time  revelers. 

"  Still  shall  this  burden  their  answer  bear, 
What  has  become  of  last  year's  snow?  " 


CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

TV  /TR.  RUDYARD  KIPLING  has  prefaced 
*•**•  his  little  volume  of  Child  Stories  with 
a  modest  intimation  that  he  finds  the  subject 
almost  beyond  his  grasp.  He  says  : 

"Only women  understand  children  thoroughly;  but 
if  a  mere  man  keeps  very  quiet,  and  humbles  himseV 
properly,  and  refrains  from  talking  down  to  his  supe 
riors,  the  children  will  sometimes  be  good  to  him,  and 
let  him  see  what  they  think  about  in  the  world.  Yet, 
even  after  patient  investigation  and  the  condescension 
of  the  nursery,  it  is  hard  to  draw  babies." 

This  sounds  disarming,  and  at  the  same  time 
strikes  a  popular  note  respecting  these  fortu 
nate  little  people,  who,  after  having  been  con 
sidered  for  many  years  as  unworthy  of  the 
novelist's  regard,  have  now  suddenly  grown 
too  complex  and  subtle  for  him  to  hope  to  un 
derstand.  Mr.  Kipling  himself  approaches 
them  with  great  caution,  and  treats  them  with 

careful  conventionality,  except  in  that  pitiful 
144 


CHILDREN   IN   FICTION  145 

bit  of  realism,  "  Baa,  Baa,  Black  Sheep,"  where 
the  misery  and  swift  deterioration  of  a  child 
are  almost  too  painfully  portrayed.  Punch, 
with  his  dim  comprehension  of  his  own  un- 
happiness,  and  his  pathetic  attempts  to  be 
friendly  and  "oblige  everybody;"  Punch, 
swaying  alternately  from  clumsy  deception  to 
helpless  rage,  badgered  into  sullenness,  and 
betrayed  by  the  inherent  weakness  of  his  poor, 
peace-loving  little  soul,  is  a  picture  burdened 
with  bitter  truth,  drawn  with  revengeful  fidel 
ity.  Once,  I  am  sure,  a  half-blind,  solitary 
boy  measured  those  lonely  rooms  in  hand 
spans:  "  fifty  down  the  side,  thirty  across,  and 
fifty  back  again — one  hundred  and  eighty-one 
exactly  from  the  hall  door  to  the  top  of  the 
first  landing."  Once,  I  am  sure,  he  knocked 
his  blundering  head  against  the  walls,  and  up 
set  the  glasses  that  he  tried  to  grasp,  in  the 
gathering  gloom  of  his  doubly  darkened  life. 

But  when  we  turn  from  the  sad  sincerity  of 
"  Black  Sheep  "to  the  brighter  atmosphere  of 
the  other  tales,  we  find  nothing  very  genuine  or 
convincing  about  the  happier  children  who  figure 


146  CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

in  them.  "  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft"  is  an 
exceedingly  clever  story,  and  Lew  and  Jakin 
may  be  typical  British  drummer  boys,  but  to 
the  uninitiated  reader  they  seem  a  trifle  over 
drawn  both  for  good  and  evil.  They  know  so 
much  and  talk  so  marvelously ;  they  are  so  very 
bad  and  so  very  upright;  and  they  insert  such  a 
bewildering  number  of  "  bloomin's  "  into  their 
conversation,  that,  like  the  eternal  "  well  "  with 
which  Mr.  Howells's  women  begin  all  their  sen 
tences,  the  word  loses  its  vraisemblance  through 
unbearable  repetition.  "  His  Majesty  the  King," 
even  when  we  forgive  him  his  cumbersome 
title  which  destroys  all  good-fellowship  at 
once,  is  a  child  dear  to  story-writers,  and  con 
secrated  to  their  uses  for  many  years,  but  so 
exceedingly  rare  in  every-day  life  that  he  has 
to  be  taken  strictly  on  faith;  while  "Wee  Wil 
lie  Winkie "  is  even  more  unveracious  in  his 
character.  These  wonderful  babes,  with  their 
sense  of  honor,  and  chivalry,  and  manhood, 
these  Bayards  in  pinafores,  these  miniature 
editions  of  King  Arthur  and  Sir  Launcelot 
rolled  into  one,  are  picturesque  possibilities 


CHILDREN   IN   FICTION  147 

only  when  we  have  forgotten  what  an  earthly 
little  animal  a  real  boy  is.  Willie  Winkie  rides 
into  a  forbidden  and  dangerous  country  to 
protect  and  rescue  a  woman  nearly  old  enough 
to  be  his  mother.  He  is  keenly  and  conscien 
tiously  distressed  because,  having  been  told  to 
keep  within  doors,  he  has  thus  "  bwoken  "  his 
"  awwest  ;  "  but  he  feels  it  his  paramount  duty 
to  pursue  and  guard  from  evil  the  able-bodied 
betrothed  of  his  father's  friend.  When  Miss 
Allardyce  accommodates  herself  to  circum 
stances  by  promptly  wrenching  her  ankle,  and 
the  pair  are  surrounded  by  ruffians  of  the  skulk 
ing,  cowardly  Indian  type  whom  Mr.  Kipling 
paints  with  such  generous  scorn,  we  are  grave 
ly  told  :  "  Then  rose  from  the  rock  Wee  Wil 
lie  Winkie,  child  of  the  Dominant  Race,  aged 
six  and  three-quarters,  and  said  briefly  and 
emphatically,  'Jcto!"  What  "Jaw"  means  is 
lost  to  our  occidental  ignorance,  but  the  effect 
is  magical.  The  twenty  armed  men  thus  con 
fronted  and  defied  are  awed  into  milder  meas 
ures,  and  finally  routed  with  shame,  while  the 
hero  of  the  hour  restores  the  prostrate  heroine 


148  CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

unharmed — save  for  the  wrenched  ankle — to 
her  lover's  anxious  embraces. 

This  is  very  amusing,  but  a  little  absurd, 
and  a  little  vulgar  as  well.  It  strikes  that  jar 
ring  note  of  provincialism  which  Matthew  Ar 
nold  condemns  with  all  the  weight  of  his  criti 
cal  eloquence  in  Kinglake's  "  Invasion  of  the 
Crimea."  "  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  child  of  the 
Dominant  Race,"  is  on  a  literary  level  with 
the  description  of  Marshal  St.  Arnaud,  cowed 
by  "the  majesty  of  the  great  Elchi's  Canning 
brow  and  tight,  merciless  lips  ;  "  a  style  of 
writing  bad  enough  in  newspaper  correspond 
ence,  but  unpardonable  in  artistic  fiction.  How 
has  it  happened  that  Mr.  Kipling,  who  tells  us 
with  such  irresistible  grace  and  simplicity  the 
"  Story  of  Muhammad  Din,"  should  stray  into 
mock  heroics  when  handling  the  children  of 
his  own  nation,  the  jolly  well-bred  little  Eng 
lish  lads,  to  whom  all  picturesque  posing  is  an 
art  unknown. 

Perhaps  the  trouble  lies  in  the  curious  but 
highly  esteemed  fallacy  that  the  child  of  fiction 
is  expected  to  be  always  precocious  and  spright- 


CHILDREN   IN   FICTION  149 

ly,  to  emit  sparks  like  a  cat,  and  electrify  the 
sluggish  atmosphere  about  him.  He  does  this 
at  the  expense  alike  of  his  sincerity  and  of  his 
manners;  we  cannot  accept  him  as  a  fact,  and  we 
don't  approve  of  him  as  a  theory.  A  few  years 
ago  a  critic  in  the  Contemporary  Review  pro 
tested  very  seriously  against  such  writers  as 
Florence  Montgomery,  "  by  whom  the  bloom 
of  unconsciousness  has  been  wiped  from  child 
hood,  and  boys  and  girls  have  learned  to  see 
themselves,  not  like  old-fashioned  children,  as 
good  and  naughty,  but  as  picturesque  beings, 
whose  naughtiness  has  an  attractive  charm, 
and  whose  very  imperfections  of  dialect  are 
worth  accurate  record."  Most  of  us  are  only 
too  familiar  with  this  kind  of  fiction,  which  for 
a  time  enjoyed  such  great  and  hurtful  populari 
ty.  The  patronizing  attitude  of  children  to  their 
parents  is  sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  really 
nice  little  boy  in  "  Transformed,"  who  calls  his 
father  "  Puppy,"  a  most  objectionable  thing 
for  a  nice  little  boy  to  do;  while  what  might 
be  termed  the  corrective  attitude  of  children 
to  their  parents  is  still  more  sharply  defined 


150  CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

by  that  unpleasant  child,  Nina  Middleton,  who 
sees  so  clearly,  and  suffers  so  intensely  from 
the  "  careless  superficiality  "  and  rigid  narrow 
ness  of  the  unfortunate  couple  whose  painful 
privilege  it  was  to  have  given  her  birth. 

One  of  the  latest  types,  however,  to  seize  and 
hold  the  hearts  of  the  big,  sentimental,  child- 
loving  public  is  Mrs.  Burnett's  Lord  Fauntleroy, 
who  maybe  best  described  as  the  good  little  boy 
with  the  clothes.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  sep 
arate  him  in  our  minds  from  his  wardrobe,  to 
divest  him  of  his  velvet  suits  and  sashes,  his 
"rich  Vandyke  lace  collar,"  his  leggings  ancl 
neat  little  Oxford  ties.  He  is  always  and  in  all 
places  "a  small  copy  of  the  fairy  prince,"  pic 
turesquely  grouped  with  a  dog,  or  a  cat,  or  a 
pony,  as  circumstances  direct.  We  cannot  be 
coarse  enough  to  imagine  him  with  cropped 
hair,  and  muddy  boots,  and  a  torn  jacket,  and 
a  hole  in  his  stocking,  like  so  many,  many  real 
little  boys  who  daily  break  their  mothers' 
hearts  by  their  profound  neglect  of  appear 
ances.  He  is  so  ready  in  conversation,  too, 
and  pays  such  charming  compliments  to  pretty 


CHILDREN   IN   FICTION  !$! 

young  ladies,  instead  of  hustling  into  corners 
and  staring  owlishly,  after  the  fashion  of  those 
awkward  little  boys  I  know.  And  he  is  so 
very,  very  good  !  Not  consciously  and  mor 
bidly  virtuous  like  that  baby  prig,  Little  Saint 
Elizabeth,  who  comes  from  the  same  hands, 
but  artlessly  and  inevitably  correct.  He  gives 
all  his  money  to  pay  poor  Michael's  rent,  and 
we  rejoice  rightly  in  his  generosity,  with  only 
one  wistful  recollection  of  that  vastly  different 
specimen  of  boyhood,  for  whose  misdeeds  Mr. 
Aldrich  is  responsible,  and  who  spends  his 
funds  gloriously  in  indigestible  treats  to  his 
friends.  It  is  very  charming  in  Lord  Faun- 
tleroy  to  offer  his  eager  plea  in  behalf  of  the 
farmer  Higgins,  and  probably  just  what  any 
warm-hearted  child  would  have  done  in  his 
place;  but  we  cannot  but  contrast  his  wonder 
ful  unconsciousness  afterward,  "  not  realizing 
his  own  importance  in  the  least,"  with  the  fa 
miliar  figure  of  little  Paul  Dombey  strutting  up 
and  down  the  room  at  Brighton,  full  of  the 
new-blown  dignity  of  being  a  financier,  and 
lending  young  Gay  the  money  for  his  uncle. 


152  CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

It  would  take  the  sternest  of  moralists  to  ob 
ject  to  Paul's  infantile  strut;  it  would  take  the 
most  trusting  of  sentimentalists  to  believe  that 
Cedric  is  quite  as  innocently  unconscious  as  he 
seems. 

There  is  a  remarkably  nice  little  girl  in  that 
pleasant  English  novel,  published  a  few  years 
ago,  Sir  Charles  Danvers — a  little  girl  who 
can  be  safely  recommended  to  all  child-lovers, 
who  will  only  wish  they  could  hear  a  great 
deal  more  about  her.  Molly  Danvers  is  not 
particularly  precocious;  she  is  not  at  all  super- 
sensitive,  and  we  are  not  even  told  that  she  is 
pretty.  There  is  absolutely  no  inventory  given 
of  her  personal  charms;  and  as  to  her  clothes, 
"  a  white  frock  and  two  slim  black  legs"  are 
casually  mentioned  on  her  first  introduction, 
and  we  never  hear  another  word  about  them. 
"A  white  frock  and  two  slim  black  legs!" 
Could  any  description  be  more  meagre  ?  Imag 
ine  Little  Saint  Elizabeth,  or  Sara  Crewe,  re 
duced  ruthlessly  to  a  white  frock,  and  not  an 
other  allusion  to  their  wardrobes  in  the  whole 
course  of  their  histories.  But  Molly  does  n't 


CHILDREN  IN  FICTION  153 

care.  I  have  a  suspicion  that  her  white  frocks 
don't  stay  white  very  long,  and  that  her  slim 
black-  legs  are  better  distinguished  for  activity 
than  for  grace.  She  is  anything  but  heroic, 
and  runs  fleetly  away  from  danger,  leaving  both 
ner  cousin  and  her  donkey  to  their  fate;  but  she 
has  a  loving  little  heart,  nevertheless,  and  when 
her  terrier  dies,  this  heart  is  as  nearly  broken 
as  a  healthy  little  girl's  can  be. 

"  '  He  is  dead,  Uncle  Charles.  He  was  quite  well, 
and  eating  Albert  biscuits  with  the  dolls  this  morning, 
and  now ' — the  rest  was  too  dreadful,  and  Molly  burst 
into  a  flood  of  tears,  and  burrowed  with  her  head 
against  the  faithful  waistcoat  of  Uncle  Charles — of 
Uncle  Charles,  the  friend,  the  consoler  of  all  the  ills 
that  Molly  had  so  far  been  heir  to. 

"'Vic  had  a  very  happy  life,  Molly,' said  Charles, 
pressing  the  little  brown  head  against  his  cheek,  and 
vaguely  wondering  what  it  would  be  like  to  have  any 
one  to  turn  to  in  time  of  trouble. 

'"I  always  kept  trouble  from  him  except  that  time 
I  shut  him  in  the  door,'  gasped  Molly.  '  I  never  took 
him  out  in  a  string,  and  he  only  wore  his  collar — that 
collar  you  gave  him  that  made  him  scratch  so — on  Sun 
days.  ' 

"  '  And  he  was  not  ill  a  long  time  ?    He  did  not  suf 
fer  any  pain  ? ' 
^  ^  "  '  No,  Uncle  Charles,  not  much.  But,  though  he  did 


154  CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

not  say  anything,  his  face  looked  worse  than  scream 
ing,  and  he  passed  away  very  stiff  in  his  hind-legs. 
Oh  ! '  (with  a  fresh  outburst)  '  when  cook  told  me  that 
her  sister  that  was  in  a  decline  had  gone,  I  never 
thought '  (sob,  sob  !)  '  poor  Vic  would  be  the  next.'  " 


This  is  not  the  less  heartrending  for  being 
amusing,  and  that  short  sentence  "his  face 
looked  worse  than  screaming "  is  a  master 
stroke  of  realistic  description.  On  the  whole, 
for  ordinary  family  purposes,  Molly  Danvers  is 
one  of  the  nicest  little  girls  I  know;  and  if  we 
seek — as  many  people  rightly  seek — for  the 
poetry,  the  beauty  of  childhood,  subtly  trans 
ferred  to  paper,  let  us  turn  back  a  few  years, 
and  re-read  for  the  fifth  or  the  fiftieth  time,  as 
it  chances,  those  seven  delicious  chapters  of 
Quatre-  Vingt-  Treize,  which  describe  a  single 
day  in  the  lives  of  the  three  babies,  Rene  Jean, 
Gros  Alain,  and  Georgette.  How  many  hours 
must  Victor  Hugo  have  watched  patiently  and 
gladly  the  ways  of  little  children  before  he 
could  paint  them  with  such  minute  and  charm 
ing  truth,  and  what  sheer  delight  is  embodied 
in  every  line  !  They  do  nothing  remarkable, 


CHILDREN   IN   FICTION  155 

these  tiny  French  peasants;  they  say  nothing 
worth  noting;  they  are  clothed  in  rags;  they 
are  alone  all  day;  they  are  mischievous,  healthy, 
and  natural.  They  hang  enchanted,  all  three, 
over  a  wood-louse,  their  curls  touching,  their 
breath  suspended,  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  em 
barrassed  insect:  and  we  watch  them  with  a 
joy  and  wonder  equal  to  their  own.  "  It  is  a 
she  -  creature,"  announces  Rene  Jean,  and 
Georgette  laughs,  Georgette  who,  at  twenty 
months,  has  not  yet  acquired  the  art  of  con 
versation.  She  utters  a  single  word  from  time 
to  time,  but  sentences  lie  beyond  her  scope. 
She  is  occupied  with  grave  thoughts,  and  when 
she  breathes  a  soft  monosyllable,  her  brothers 
pause  encouragingly  to  listen.  A  belated  bee 
comes  buzzing  in  the  window  and  departs. 

"  '  She  is  going  home/  said  Rene  Jean. 
"  '  It  is  a  beast,'  said  Gros  Alain.     '  No,'  said  Rene 
Jean,  '  it  is  a  fly.'     '  A  f'y,'  said  Georgette." 

This  is  the  extent  of  their  conversational 
powers,  and  how  very  limited  it  seems.  They 
do  not  talk,  these  babies;  they  act.  They  lay 
their  destructive  hands  on  the  rare  old  folio  of 


156  CHILDREN   IN   FICTION 

Saint  Bartholomew,  and  tear  out  the  leaves 
one  by  one,  solemnly,  innocently,  conscien 
tiously.  Georgette,  who  cannot  reach  the  vol 
ume,  sits  on  the  floor,  and  tears  each  leaf  into 
little  pieces  with  painstaking  amiability;  and 
all  three  are  so  happy  over  their  self-appointed 
task.  By  the  side  of  their  absolute  uncon 
sciousness,  the  Willie  Winkies  and  Lord  Faun- 
tleroys  of  romance  grow  suddenly  Utopian  and 
unreal.  The  chivalry,  honor,  generosity,  loy 
alty,  picturesqueness,  and  brilliancy,  all  the 
story-book  virtues  of  story-book  children,  seem 
less  winning  and  less  dear  than  the  birdlike 
contentment  of  three  silent,  sleepy  little  crea 
tures,  curled  softly  together,  and  painted  by  a 
master's  hand. 


THREE   FAMOUS  OLD  MAIDS 

T  T  is  a  curious  fact  that  three  of  the  most 
-*-  successful  and  eminent  literary  women  in 
England — Miss  Austen,  Miss  Edgeworth,  and 
Miss  Mitford — should  have  been  typical  old 
maids  ;  not  merely  unmarried  through  stress  of 
intervening  circumstances  —  ill  health,  early 
disappointment,  or  a  self-sacrificing  devotion 
to  other  cares — but  women  whose  lives  were 
rounded  and  completed  without  that  element 
which  we  are  taught  to  believe  is  the  main 
spring  and  prime  motor  of  existence.  To  un 
derstand  how  thoroughly  this  was  the  case,  we 
have  but  to  turn  to  a  later  and  very  different 
writer,  Charlotte  Bronte,  who  married  when 
she  was  thirty-eight,  and  died  one  year  after 
ward,  and  whose  whole  literary  life  was  ac 
cordingly  passed  in  spinsterhood.  Yet  if  that 
very  grave  and  respectable  gentleman,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Nicholls,  had  never  appeared  upon 
157 


158  THREE    FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

the  scene  at  all,  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  call  Miss  Bronte  a  typical  old  maid.  She 
had  the  outward  signs  of  one,  indeed,  the  prim 
demeanor,  the  methodical  habits,  the  sarcastic 
attitude  toward  the  male  sex  ;  but  burning  in 
every  fibre  of  her  being,  and  evident  in  every 
page  of  her  writings,  is  that  fierce  unrest,  that 
inarticulate,  distressful  longing  of  a  woman 
who  craves  love.  We  can  easily  imagine 
Elizabeth  Bennet,  and  the  very  sensible  Elinor 
Dashwood,  and  even  Emma  Woodhouse, 
dearest  and  brightest  of  girls,  slipping  from 
their  lovers'  grasp  and  growing  into  old  maids 
as  charming  as  was  Miss  Austen  herself;  but 
poor  plain  Jane  Eyre,  and  that  reticent  little 
school-teacher,  Lucy  Snowe,  are  shaken  and 
consumed  with  the  passion  of  their  own  desires. 
Such  women  cannot  walk  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave,  handling  their  lives  with  delicate 
satisfaction  and  content ;  they  must  find  what 
they  need  or  die. 

It  is  amusing  to  note  how  the  various  critics 
and  biographers  of  Miss  Austen,  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  and  Miss  Mitford  have  debated  and 


THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS  159 

fretted  over  the  painful  lack  of  romance  in 
their  careers.  Feminine  critics,  especially,  find 
it  difficult  to  believe  that  there  is  no  hidden 
tale  to  tell,  no  secret  and  justifiable  cause  for 
this  otherwise  inexplicable  behavior  ;  and  much 
time  and  patience  have  been  exhausted  in 
dragging  shadowy  memories  to  light.  In  the 
case  of  Miss  Mitford,  indeed,  it  seems  quite 
hopeless  to  search  for  even  the  ghost  of  a  love- 
story,  and,  although  she  certainly  did  devote 
her  life  with  touching  unselfishness  to  the  com 
fort  and  support  of  a  very  exacting  father,  it 
cannot  for  a  moment  be  urged  that,  in  so  do 
ing,  she  relinquished  any  distinct  desire  or 
prospect  of  matrimony.  Perhaps  the  exasper 
ating  qualities  of  her  parent  inclined  her  un 
consciously  to  remain  single  ;  for,  with  all  her 
unsparing  devotion,  she  must,  in  the  course  of 
sorely  tried  years,  have  grown  to  regard  men 
very  much  as  Dolly  Winthrop  regarded  them, 
— ''in  the  light  of  animals  whom  it  had  pleased 
Heaven  to  make  naturally  troublesome."  Mr. 
Mitford,  a  most  genial  and  handsome  old  gen 
tleman  of  the  Turveydrop  pattern,  managed 


160  THREE    FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

to  keep  his  daughter's  hands  full  of  work,  and 
her  heart  full  of  love,  and  left  her  little  chance 
or  disposition  for  any  wandering  fancies.  All 
the  exuberant  affection  of  her  girlhood,  all  the 
mature  attachment  of  later  years,  were  concen 
trated  upon  him  alone.  Her  youth  waned,  her 
freshness  faded,  her  indomitable  courage  and 
cheerfulness  quailed  a  little  before  the  ever- 
increasing  burdens  of  her  life ;  but  through  it 
all,  in  joy  and  sorrow,  no  shadow  of  a  suitor 
stands  beckoning  by  her  side.  Her  serene  old 
age  was  haunted  by  no  dim  voices  crying 
out  of  the  past  for  the  joy  which  had  slipped 
from  her  grasp.  She  wrote  love-stories  by  the 
score,  always  approaching  the  subject  from  the 
outside,  and  treating  it  with  the  easy  conven 
tionality,  the  generous  yet  imperfect  sympathy 
of  a  warm-hearted  woman  not  prone  to  ana 
lyze  motives.  They  are  very  pleasant  stories 
for  the  most  part,  sensible,  healthy,  and  happy  ; 
but  they  are  not  convincing.  The  reader  feels 
that  if  Polly  did  not  marry  Joe  she  would  be 
just  as  well  satisfied  with  William,  and  that  if 
Edwin  failed  to'  win  Angelina  he  would  soon 


THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS  l6l 

content  himself  with  Dorothy.  This  is  a  com 
fortable  state  of  affairs,  and  doubtless  true  to 
life  ;  but  it  is  not  precisely  the  element  which 
makes  a  successful  love-tale.  The  fact  is,  Miss 
Mitford  described  things  pretty  much  as  she 
found  them,  not  seeking  to  dive  below  the  sur 
face,  and  always  adding  a  little  sunshine  of  her 
own.  She  was  a  happy  woman,  save  for  some 
sad  years  of  overwork,  and  her  life  was  full  of 
pleasant  detail,  of  cherished  duties,  and  of 
felicitous  labor  ;  but,  from  first  to  last,  love  had 
no  part  in  it,  and,  fancy  free,  she  never  reckon 
ed  of  her  loss. 

Miss  Edgeworth,  too,  seems  to  have  been 
lifted  from  the  sphere  of  matrimony  by  the  un 
usual  strength  of  her  family  affections.  Her 
devotion  to  her  father,  to  her  two  stepmothers, 
and  to  her  nineteen  brothers  and  sisters  was  of 
such  an  absorbing  nature  as  to  leave  her  little 
leisure  or  inclination  for  mere  matters  of  senti 
ment.  She  was  so  busy  too,  so  full  of  pleas 
ant  cares,  and  successful  work,  and  a  thousand- 
and-one  delightful  interests ;  above  all,  she 
clung  so  fondly  to  her  home,  and  country,  and 


162  THREE    FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

the  familiar  faces  she  had  known  from  baby 
hood,  that  love  had  no  chance  to  storm  her 
well-defended  walls.  When  that  handsome 
and  earnest  young  Swede,  he  of  the  "  superior 
understanding  and  mild  manners,"  came  to 
woo,  he  found,  alas  !  that  the  lady  could  not 
tear  her  heart  away  from  Ireland  and  her 
beautiful-  young  stepsisters  to  give  it  to  his 
keeping.  She  acknowledged  his  merits,  both 
his  mildness  and  his  superiority,  she  liked  and 
admired  him  in  every  way  ;  but  marry  and  go 
to  Sweden  ! — that  she  would  not  do,  either 
for  M.  Edelcrantz  or  any  other  man.  Mrs. 
Edgeworth,  who  was  distinctly  sentimental, 
and  who  would  have  been  delighted  to  see  her 
clever  stepdaughter  happily  wedded,  says 
quite  touchingly  that  Maria  was  mistaken  in 
the  strength  of  her  own  feelings  ;  that  she 
really  loved  M.  Edelcrantz,  but  refused  to 
marry  him  because  her  family  could  not  bear 
to  part  with  her,  because  "she  would  not  have 
suited  his  position  at  the  court  of  Stockholm," 
and  because  she  feared  her  lack  of  beauty 
would  one  day  lessen  his  regard.  Shadow  of 


THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS  163 

shadows  !  Was  there  ever  a  woman  who  de 
clined  to  marry  the  man  she  truly  loved  for 
such  cloud-built  reasoning  as  this  !  Maria  was 
doubtless  the  darling  of  her  own  home  circle, 
and  would  have  been  sorely  missed  had  she 
winged  her  flight  to  Sweden  ;  but  there  were 
daughters  enough  in  that  overflowing  house 
hold  to  admit  of  one  being  spared.  As  for  the 
other  obstacles,  it  is  hardly  possible  that  they 
should  have  been  urged  seriously  by  a  woman 
as  free  from  morbid  sentiment  as  was  Miss 
Edgeworth.  There  is  a  sweet  humility  which 
is  born  of  love,  and  which  whispers  to  most 
women — and,  probably,  to  some  men — that 
they  are  unworthy  of  the  choice  which  has 
fallen  upon  them,  of  the  jewel  which  has  been 
flung  at  their  feet.  But  to  push  this  delicate 
emotion  so  far  as  to  sacrifice  happiness  at  its 
bidding  is  not  the  impulse  of  a  sound  and 
healthy  nature.  Miss  Edgeworth  could  never 
have  been  pretty,  and  had  spent  most  of  her 
life  in  retirement  ;  but  she  was  by  no  means 
unacquainted  with  the  ways  of  the  world,  by 
no  means  destitute  of  womanly  charms,  and, 


164  THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

above  all,  by  no  means  without  the  exhilarat 
ing  consciousness  of  success.  In  fact,  when  we 
read  her  biography,  we  are  principally  im 
pressed  by  the  amount  of  adulation  she  re 
ceived,  by  the  extraordinary  enthusiasm  her 
pleasant  tales  aroused.  The  struggling  novel 
ist  is  tempted  to  wish  that  he  also  might  have 
lived  in  those  halcyon  days,  until  he  remembers 
that  a  far  greater  writer,  Miss  Austen,  had  no 
share  in  this  universal  and  unbounded  ap 
plause.  Miss  Edgeworth  was  as  much  the  pet 
of  the  literary  world  as  of  her  own  household 
and  friends.  She  had  little  need  to  doubt  her 
powers,  or  to  fear  neglect  and  indifference.  If 
she  really  regretted  poor  M.  Edelcrantz — who 
went  back  to  Sweden  with  a  sore  heart  and 
never  married  anybody  else — she  gave  no  out 
ward  token  of  repentance,  but  lived  to  be 
eighty-two,  the  most  cheerful  and  radiant  of 
old  maids,  faithful  to  the  last  to  her  family 
affections,  and  happy  to  die  in  the  midst  of 
those  who  had  made  the  sunshine  of  her  life. 

It  is  in   the   case   of  Miss  Austen,  however, 
that  truly  strenuous  efforts  have  been  made  to 


THREE   FAMOUS   OLD    MAIDS  165 

cultivate  a  passable  romance  upon  scanty  soil. 
Miss  Austen  was  pretty,  she  was  gay,  she 
possessed  an  indefinable  attraction  for  men, 
and  she  was  in  turn  attracted  by  them,  as  a 
healthy-minded,  happy-hearted  girl  should  be. 
Her  letters  to  Cassandra  are  full  of  amusing 
confidences  on  the  subject — confidences  far  too 
amusing,  in  fact,  to  give  any  sign  or  token  of 
genuine  feeling  beyond.  She  writes  with 
buoyant  cheerfulness  about  Mr.  Tom  Lefroy, 
for  whom  she  "does  not  care  sixpence,"  yet 
prefers  him  to  all  other  competitors,  who  must 
have  ranked  pitiably  low  in  the  scale.  "I  am 
almost  afraid,"  she  confesses,  "to  tell  you  how 
my  Irish  friend  and  I  behaved.  Imagine  to 
yourself  everything  most  profligate  and  shock 
ing  in  the  way  of  dancing  and  sitting  down  to 
gether.  I  can  expose  myself,  however,  only 
once  more,  because  he  leaves  the  country  soon 
after  next  Friday,  on  which  day  we  are  to 
have  a  dance  at  Ashe  after  all.  He  is  a  very 
gentlemanlike,  good-looking,  pleasant  young 
man,  I  assure  you." 

Not  without  grave  faults,  though,  it  would 


l66  THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

seem,  for  a  little  later  we  hear  of  a  morning 
coat  which  is  much  too  light  to  please  Jane's 
critical    eye.     She    cannot  possibly  give   her 
maiden  affections  to  a  man  who  would  wear 
such  a  coat,  and   so,  after  a  while,  he  disap 
pears  from  her   pages  and   her  life,  to  go  out 
into  the  world,  and  win   much  legal  renown, 
and  be  Chief  Justice  of  Ireland,  and  always  to 
remember    with     great    tenderness    the    gay 
young  girl   at  Ashe.     Then  there  appears  on 
the  scene  that  unnamed  friend  of  Mrs.  Lefroy's, 
whose  love  is  so  sudden  and  fervent  that  Miss 
Austen  feels  quite  sure  it  will  soon  decline  into 
"  sensible  indifference,"  as,  no  doubt,  it  does. 
Then  the  suitor  who  has  "the  recommenda 
tion  of  good  character,  and  a  good  position  in 
life,   of  everything  in  fact  except  the    subtle 
powei*of  touching  my  heart" — which  seems  to 
have  been  the  real  difficulty  with  them  all. 
Sir  Francis  Doyle,  indeed,  tells  a  very  pretty 
and  pathetic  tale  of  Jane  Austen's  engagement 
to  a  naval  officer  who,  after  the  peace  of  1820, 
accompanied   his  fiancee    and    her    family  to 
Switzerland.     Here  he  started  off  on  foot  one 


THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS  l6/ 

fine  morning,  promising  to  meet  his  friends  at 
Chamouni.  He  never  came,  and  they  waited 
and  waited  with  fast-growing  fears,  only  to 
learn,  when  all  was  over,  that  the  young  man 
had  been  seized  with  a  sudden  fever,  and  had 
died,  unknown  and  scantily  cared  for,  in  some 
poor  cottage  home.  It  is  a  sad  story,  but  hap 
pily  does  not  rest  upon  any  shadow  of  founda 
tion.  Miss  Austen  never  was  engaged,  and 
never  was  in  Switzerland;  and  although  Sir 
Francis  had  the  tale  from  a  friend,  who  had  it 
from  a  member  of  the"  family,  it  merely  goes 
to  prove  that  even  relatives  are  not  wholly  in 
capable  of  weaving  romances  out  of  thin  air, 
rather  than  be,  like  the  knife-grinder,  without 
a  tale  to  tell. 

Mrs.  Maiden,  Jane  Austen's  enthusiastic  biog 
rapher,  discredits  most  unhesitatingly  this  par 
ticular  love-legend,  while  at  the  same  time  she 
manifests  a  lively  desire  to  give  form  and  color 
to  another,  scarcely  less  intangible.  The  third 
chapter  in  her  little  volume  is  enticingly  head 
ed  "  Her  Life's  One  Romance,"  and  in  it  is  nar 
rated  at  some  length  the  story  of  an  attractive 


168  THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

young  clergyman  whom  Jane  and  Cassandra 
Austen  met  one  summer  at  a  seaside  resort  in 
Devonshire.  He  openly  admired  the  younger 
girl,  and,  when  they  parted,  "  impressed 
strongly  on  the  sisters  his  intention  of  meeting 
them  again."  He  died,  however,  shortly  after, 
and  Jane  neither  gave  any  outward  token  of 
t  grief,  nor  indulged  in  any  confidences  on  the 
subject.  Nevertheless,  Cassandra,  whose  own 
youth  was  shadowed  by  the  blight  of  a  lost 
love,  was  wont  to  say,  after  her  sister's  death, 
that  she  believed  this  to  have  been  her  one 
and  only  romance;  and  Miss  Thackeray,  in 
her  sympathetic  sketch  of  Miss  Austen,  alludes 
very  sweetly  and  very  confidently  to  the  tale. 
"  Here,  too,"  she  says,  "  is  another  sorrow 
ful  story.  The  sisters'  fate  (there  is  a  sad 
coincidence  and  similarity  in  it)  was  to  be 
undivided;  their  life,  their  experience,  was  the 
same.  Some  one  without  a  name  takes  leave 
of  Jane  one  day,  promising  to  come  back.  He 
never  comes  back:  long  afterwards  they  hear 
of  his  death.  The  story  seems  even  sadder 
than  Cassandra's  in  its  silence  and  uncertainty, 


THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS  169 

for  silence  and  uncertainty  are  death  in  life  to 
some  people." 

But  if  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another 
to  be  avoided  and  ruthlessly  condemned,  it  is 
this  quiet  assumption  that  a  woman  has  parted 
with  her  heart,  when  she  herself  has  breathed 
no  word  to  warrant  it.  The  cheerful  serenity 
of  Jane  Austen's  daily  life  showed  no  ripple  of 
storm,  her  lips  told  no  tale;  and  why  are  we 
to  assume  that  a  young  man  whom  she  met  for 
a  few  idle  weeks  and  never  saw  again  had 
broken  down  the  barriers  of  that  self-possessed 
nature,  had  overcome  the  gay  indifference 
which  showed  no  signs  of  hurt  ?  As  for  the 
popular  theory  that  Anne  Elliot's  gentle  en 
during  love  and  poor  Fanny  Price's  hours  of 
bravely  borne  pain  were  imaged  from  the 
depth  of  their  author's  experience,  we  have  but 
to  remember  that  the  same  hand  gave  us  Har 
riet  Smith,  with  her  fluctuating,  lightly  won 
affections,  and  Charlotte  Collins,  sensible  and 
happy,  enjoying  her  pleasant  home,  and  en 
during — or  avoiding — her  solemn,  pompous, 
servile,  stupid  husband.  As  well  connect  one 


I/O  THREE   FAMOUS   OLD   MAIDS 

type  as  another  with  the  genius  that  revealed 
them  all. 

"  Of  Jane  herself  I  know  no  definite  love-tale 
to  relate,"  says  her  nephew  and  biographer, 
Mr.  Austen  Leigh;  and  this  seems  about  the 
conclusion  of  the  matter.  "  No  mans  life 
could  be  more  entirely  free  from  sentiment," 
admits,  very  reluctantly,  one  of  her  cleverest 
critics.  "  If  lov£  be  a  woman's  chief  business, 
here  is  a  very  sweet  woman  who  had  no  share 
in  it.  It  is  a  -\fant,  but  we  have  no  right  to 
complain,  seeing  that  she  did  not  shape  her 
course  to  please  us." 

This  is  a  generous  reflection  on  the  critic's 
part; '  but  is  the  want  so  painfully  apparent  as 
he  thinks,  or  may  we  not  be  well  content  with 
Jane  Austen  as  we  have  her,  the  central  figure 
of  a  little  loving  family  group,  ,the  dearest  of 
daughters  and  sisters,  the  gayest  and  bright 
est  of  aunts,  the  most  charming  and  incom 
parable  of  old  maids  ? 


THE  CHARM  OF  THE  FAMILIAR 

« 

r  I  ""HOSE  persons  are  happiest  in  chis  rest- 
•*"  less  and  mutable  world  who  are  in  lov£ 
with  change,  who  delight  in  what  is  new  sim 
ply  because  it  differs  from  what  is  olcf ;  who  re 
joice  in  every  innovation,  and  find  a  strange 
alert  pleasure  in  all  that  is,  and  that  has  never 
been  before.  With  little  things  as  with  big 
ones,  this  sentiment  is  the  sentiment  of  our 
day.  "  Unrest,"  says  Schopenhauer,  "is  the 
mark  of  existence,"  and  the  many  trifling  de 
tails  of  ordinary  life  evince  on  every  side  the 
same  keen  relish  for  novelty,  the  same  careless 
disregard  of  the  familiar.  Especially  is  this 
the  case  with  women,  who  feel  less  wistfully 
than  men  the  subtle  charm  of  association,  and 
who  have  less  sympathy  than  men  for  the  dear, 
faulty,  unlovely,  well-loved  things  of  their 
youth.  TNo  woman  could  have  written  those 
pathetic  lines  of  Mr.  Lang's  on  St.  Andrews: 

"  A  little  city,  worn  and  gray," 
171 


1/2         THE   CHARM   OF   THE   FAMILIAR 

the  memory  of  whose  rainwashed,  desolate 
streets  blots  out  from  his  mind  all  the  beauty 
and  the  splendor  of  Oxford.  And — to  descend 
from  serious  to  frivolous  subjects — no  woman 
can  wholly  appreciate  that  pleasant  sketch  of 
Mr.  Barrie's,  called  "  My  Tobacco  Pouch," 
which  reveals  a  mental  condition  absolutely 
inexplicable  to  the  most  astute  feminine  appre 
hension^  It  is  the  instinctive  desire  of  our  sex 
for  modernism  that  keeps  rolling  the  great  ball 
of  trade.  Manufacturers  and  shopkeepers  would 
starve  in  common  if  they  catered  only  to  men, 
who  not  infrequently  have  a  marked  prefer 
ence  for  the  archaic.  But  women,  to  use  the 
words  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  are  "  complex- 
ionally  prepense  to  innovation."  With  won 
derful  pliancy  and  adaptability  they  fit  easily 
into  new  surroundings,  make  homes  out  of 
new  houses,  fill  their  rooms  with  new  objects, 
and  grasp  a  fair  share  of  happiness  in  the  en 
joyment  of  novelty  in  every  form,  whether  of 
fashion,  art,  literature,  religion  or  philanthropy. 
But  what  of  the  unfortunate  few  who, 
through  some  strange  moral  twist,  are  "  com- 


THE   CHARM    OF   THE   FAMILIAR         173 

plexionally  prepense"  to  sameness;  who  feel  a 
passionate  regret  for  what  has  been  lost,  and  a 
passionate  reluctance  to  part  with  what  is  fast 
slipping  away;  and  who,  as  the  great  world 
rolls  relentlessly  on  its  appointed  course,  find 
themselves  "  forever  broken  on  the  wheel  of 
time  "  ?  The  journal  of  that  stout  old  Tory, 
Sir  Francis  Doyle,  betrays  a  strong  dislike, 
not  only  for  political  upheavals,  which  are 
very  uncomfortable  and  disturbing  things,  but 
for  innovations  of  any  kind.^"  Nothing  can  be 
so  good  as  what  is  old,"  says  Mr.  Lang;  and 
Mr.  Peacock  tranquilly  declares  that  all  the 
really  valuable  opinions  have  been  uttered  a 
thousand  years  ago.  Amid  the  noisy  blare 
with  which  the  trumpets  of  progress  herald 
every  move,  comes  thrilling  now  and  then  a 
note  of  protest  from  some  malcontent  who 
does  not  part  so  easily  with  the  past,  and  for 
whom  familiarity  lends  to  every  detail  of  life  a 
merit  and  beauty  of  its  own.  It  almost  seems 
as  if  two-thirds  of  mankind  were  hard  at 
work  improving  away  the  happiness  of  the 
remaining  third,  and  bidding  them  at  inter- 


174         THE   CHARM    OF   THE   FAMILIAR 

vals   to   stop   grumbling    and   appreciate   the 

change. 
*--.% 

iwhen  it  chances  that  these  familiar  details 
lx 

are  associated  in  the  mind  with  pleasures, 
early  pleasures  especially,  the  memory  of 
which  lingers  with  the  sweetness  of  honey, 
then  the  pain  of  parting  with  them  is  utterly 
disproportioned  to  their  worth.  I  h'ave  never 
been  able  to  understand  how  people  can  re- 
bind  an  old  book,  or  reframe  an  old  picture,  if 
the  book  or  the  picture  have  been  in  any  way 
dear  to  them  for  years.  How  strange  and  un 
friendly  these  objects  look  in  their  new  dress ! 
How  remote  they  seem  from  the  recollections 
hitherto  aroused  by  their  presence  !^  One  of 
the  minor  grievances  of  my  life  is  the  gradual 
disappearance  from  the  theatres  of  all  the  old 
drop-curtains  I  can  remember  since  my  child 
ish  days.  Perhaps  the  new  curtains  are  better 
than  the  old  ones — I  hear  persons  say  as  much 
occasionally — but  to  me  they  are  simply  hid 
eous,  because  their  native  ugliness  is  unsoft- 
ened  by  any  gracious  memory  of  those  far-off 
nights  when,  feverish  with  delight,  I  sat  star- 


THE   CHARM   OF   THE   FAMILIAR         175 

ing  at  the  stretch  of  painted  canvas,  and  antic 
ipating  all  the  joys  that  lay  behind.  There 
was  no  moment  of  transport  equal  to  that 
which  saw  the  slow  ascent  of  the  mystic  veil, 
revealing  inch  by  inch  the  enchanted  scenes 
beyond;  and  I  still  believe  that  if  I  could  be 
hold  once  more  those  dear,  familiar  land 
scapes,  some  portion  of  the  old,  lost  pleasure 
would  return.  yJThree  curtains  are  indelibly 
associated  with  these  hours  of  supreme  happi 
ness;  and  I  recall  them  all  three  now  a,s  the. 
most  beautiful  pictures  in  the  world.  One — 
and  this,  I  think,  was  the  first  I  ever  saw- 
represented  an  Italian  view,  with  a  lively  vol 
cano  in  the  background,  and,  in  front,  a  long- 
legged  shepherd  lad  reclining  on  the  marble 
steps  of  a  fountain,  while  his  flock  loitered 
lazily  around.  ^Another  displayed  four  stout 
and  dropsical  nymphs  preparing  for,  or  resting 
from,  a  hunt;  this  fact  being  adroitly  intimated 
by  the  presence  of  some  very  long  bows,  and 
some  very  lean  greyhounds.  The  third  was  a 
seaport  town,  with  vessels  lying  in  harbor, 
and  a  little  terrace  running  to  the  water's  edge, 


THE   CHARM   OF   THE   FAMILIAR 

on  which  terrace  I  have  taken  many  a  stroll  in 
spirit,  waiting  for  the  wonders  to  come.  Not 
that  the  waits  were  ever  long  in  those  van 
ished  days.  On  the  contrary,  the  whole  even 
ing  flew  by  on  wings  of  fire,  and  Tthe  only 
thought  that  marred  my  perfect  felicity  was 
the  haunting  consciousness  that  it  would  too 
soon  be  over.  And  the  theatres  were  never  hot, 
or  stuffy,  or  draughty,  when  I  was  a  child; 
and  the  lights  were  never  glaring,  but  shone 
with  a  gentle  radiance;  and  the  chairs  were 
softer  than  down;  and  the  music  was  noble 
and  inspiring;  and-  the  .actors  were  men  of 
genius;  and  the  actresses  were  ravishingly 
beautiful;  and  the  scenery  was  sublime;  and  the 
plays  were  wondrously  witty;  and  the  paste 
jewels  were  dazzling;  and  ennui  was  unknown; 
and  I  never,  never,  never,  wished  I  had  stayed 
at  home.  What  new  drop-curtain  hides  from 
me  now  the  rapturous  illusions  of  my  youth  L-- 

Another  grievance,  more  palpable  because 
less  inevitable  than  the  replacing  of  worn-out 
theatre  properties  with  fresh  ones,  is  the  pas 
sion  of  publishers  for  altering  the  covers  of 


THE   CHARM    OF   THE   FAMILIAR         I// 

their  magazines.  This  is  the  strangest  act  of 
vandalism  that  an  unholy  zest  for  novelty 
ever  prompted  in  the  human  bosom.  Why  a 
magazine  cover  is  selected  in  the  first  place, 
remains,  in  most  cases,  an  unfathomed  mystery. 
It  is  seldom  a  thing  of  beauty,  but,  once  asso 
ciated  with  the  agreeable  visitor  that  every 
month  brings  some  new  tidings  to  our  door,  it 
acquires  for  us  all  the  subtle  charm  of  familiar 
ity.  Nothing  can  well  be  more  stiff  and  un 
graceful  than  the  design  of  Blackwood;  that 
wilted,  conventional  border,  and  that  wreath 
of  prickly  Scotch  thistles,  defending  rather 
than  decorating  the  vignette  of  the  founder, 

"With  eyes  severe  and  beard  of  formal  cut." 

The  whole  cover  seems  to  say,  "  Stand  off, 
rash  mortal !  There  is  nothing  here  for  you  ! " 
Yet  to  lose  it  would  be  to  lose  an  old,  surly, 
faithful  and  long-tried  friend.  I  sometimes 
feel  that  Blackwood  is  not  as  readable  as  it 
was  when  I  was  a  girl— it  is  the  privilege  of 
increasing  years  to  think  all  magazines  were 
better  when  we  were  young — but  for  that  very 


i;8          THE   CHARM    OF   THE   FAMILIAR 

reason  I  am  glad  to  greet  the  ancient  thistles 
that  alone  remain  defiant  and  unchanged.  K 

American  publishers,  however,  are  as  de 
lighted  to  offer  their  readers  a  new  cover  as  a 
new  story,  and  it  is  occasionally  interesting  to 
follow  a  magazine  through  all  its  outer  vicissi 
tudes.  There  was  a  time  when  Saint  Nicholas 
behaved  like  Harlequin  in  the  pantomime, 
slipping  into  fresh  costumes  with  bewildering 
alertness  and  rapidity.  The  Century  has  adopt 
ed  a  plan  eminently  fitted  to  confuse  and  dis 
tress  people  who  are  in  love  with  the  familiar, 
and  who  have  barely  time  to  accustom  them 
selves  to  one  of  the  picturesque  young  women 
on  its  cover,  before  they  are  confronted  with 
another.  The  only  engaging  and  comforting 
thing  about  these  rival  damsels  is  their  strong 
family  resemblance.  They  are  like  the  fair 
daughters  of  Doris,  with  faces  "  neither  the 
same  nor  different,  but  as  those  of  sisters 
should  be."  The  wanton  alterations  in  Har 
per  s  Magazine  are  none  the  less  heartbreak 
ing  for  being  so  trivial.  As  well  rob  us  of  an 
old  friend  altogether  as  tamper  with  his  abso- 


THE   CHARM   OF   THE   FAMILIAR         179 

lute  integrity.  No  one  can  claim  for  Harper 
that  its  time-honored  cover  has  any  rare  artis 
tic  quality,  any  of  that  subtle  and  far-reaching 
suggestiveness  that  we  prize  so  wearily  to-day. 
On  the  contrary,  its  little  boys  scattering  roses 
into  nowhere,  and  its  preposterous  child  blow 
ing  soap  bubbles  on  a  globe  belong  distinctly 
to  the  cheerful  school  of  Philistia,  and  are  not 
burdened  with  meanings  of  any  kind.  That 
makes  them  so  refreshing  to  our  eyes;  and  be 
sides  I  have  always  regarded  them  with  sincere 
affection,  because  of  the  pleasure  they  afforded 
me  in  infancy.  It  was  one  of  the  unwritten 
laws  of  our  nursery  that,  when  a  new  magazine 
arrived,  the  old  one  passed  into  our  possession. 
We  painted  all  the  pictures  with  water  colors, 
and  we  cut  out  the  little  figures  on  the  cover 
for  paper  dolls.  Not  the  child  straddling  over 
the  globe !  It  was  impossible  to  make  any 
thing  out  of  him,  owing  to  his  uncomfortable 
position.  But  the  lads  in  tunics  we  thought 
extremely  pretty,  especially  the  one  in  the 
right-hand  corner,  whose  head  was  as  round  as 
a  bullet.  The.  left-hand  boy  had  a  slightly 


ISO         THE   CHARM   OF   THE   FAMILIAR 

flattened  skull,  which  destroyed  his  perfect 
symmetry,  though  we  occasionally  remedied 
this  defect  by  leaving  him  a  small  portion  of  his 
basket,  and  pretending  it  was  hair.  Now,  alas  ! 
though  the  children  still  mount  guard  on  their 
flower-wreathed  pedestals,  and  still  scatter 
their  roses  in  the  air,  some  unkind  hand  has 
wrought  radical  changes  in  their  aspect.  They 
have  grown  bigger,  stouter,  and  their  decent 
little  tunics,  so  nicely  drawn  up  over  one  shoul 
der,  have  been  replaced  by  those  absurd  float 
ing  draperies  which  form  the  conventional  attire 
of  seraphs,  and  sea  nymphs  all  the  world  over. 
Never  was  there  such  an  unhappy  transforma 
tion.  It  is  true  that  on  the  old  cover  of  Bent  ley's 
Magazine — if  we  may  trust  the  minute  picture 
of  it  on  the  face  of  Littell — the  little  figures 
with  baskets  were  clad,  or  unclad,  in  these  same 
airy  rags.  But  this  fact  does  not  reconcile  me 
at  all.  I  never  knew  Bentley's  boys,  but  I  have 
known  Harper's  children  all  my  life,  and  I  can 
not  bear  to  see  them  sliivering  month  after 
month  in  such  ridiculous,  inadequate  sashes. 
What  sort  of  paper  dolls  would  they  have  made 


THE  CHARM   OF   THE   FAMILIAR         l8l 

for  well-bred  little  girls  ?  And  why  should 
they  have  been  deprived  of  their  only  garment 
to  gratify  a  restless  taste  for  change  ?J 

Well,  it  is  useless  to  complain,  for  around  us 
on  every  side  people  are  fretting,  and  have 
fretted  for  generations  over  the  unloved  mo 
notony  of  their  surroundings.  "  It  is  not  given 
to  the  world  to  be  contented,"  says  Goethe; 
and  while  life  can  never  hurry  on  fast  enough, 
or  assume  phases  new  enough  to  please  the 
majority  of  mankind,  a  few  dissatisfied  souls 
will  always  cling  perversely  to  the  things 
which  they  have  known,  and  feel  more  keenly 
every  year  that  all  the  vaunted  delights  of  nov 
elty  and  progress  are  but  a  poor  substitute  for 
the  finer  charm  of  the  familiar. 


OLD  WORLD  PETS 

T  T  7"E  have  grown  to  be  very  narrow-minded, 
*  ^  very  exclusive,  and  hopelessly  unim 
aginative  in  our  choice  of  domestic  pets.  We 
love  and  cherish  the  dog,  and  we  have  a  senti 
ment,  less  universal  but  far  more  disinterested, 
in  favor  of  the  beautiful  and  cold-hearted  cat. 
We  keep  canaries  in  gilded  cages — and  there 
the  matter  practically  ends.  A  few  rabbits  in 
a  hutch — which  are  never  petted — an  occasion 
al  parrot  feared  by  its  master  and  hated  by  its 
master's  friends;  a  little  song-bird  imprisoned 
now  and  then,  and  slowly  dying  of  despair; 
these  are  instances,  happily  too  infrequent  to 
count  very  heavily  in  the  scale.  As  a  fact, 
many  people  value  the  dog  and  cat  for  their 
serviceable  qualities  alone;  exiling  the  first  to 
the  kennel  and  the  second  to  the  kitchen,  and 
liking  both,  as  Miss  Mitford  confessed  she  liked 
children,  "in  their  place"— meaning  anyplace 

where  she  was  not. 

182 


OLD   WORLD  PETS  183 

But  when  we  turn  back  to  the  past  we  find, 
or  think  we  find,  a  very  different  state  of  affairs; 
an  almost  endless  variety  of  little  wild  crea 
tures,  tamed  by  luxury  and  love.  The  dog 
still  holds  his  own,  and  we-  need  look  no  fur 
ther  than  the  Odyssey  to  see,  in  the  great 
hound  Argus,  the  splendid  sagacity,  the  un 
swerving  loyalty,  whkh  centuries  have  not  al 
tered  or  impaired.  I  have  always  wished  that 
Argus  could  have  had  Sir  Walter  Scott,  rather 
than  the  crafty  Odysseus  for  a  master.  There 
is  also  a  pathetic  dialogue  in  Theocritus  be 
tween  two  old  fishermen,  who  are  so  poor  they 
may  not  even  own  a  watchdog  to  guard  their 
scanty  spoils: 

"All  things,  all,  to  them  seemed  superfluity,  for 
Poverty  was  their  sentinel.  They  had  no  neighbor  by 
them,  but  ever  against  their  narrow  cabin  gently  float 
ed  up  the  sea." 

Cats,  too,  were  valued  pets  in  former  days, 
and  probably  found  such  easy  domesticity 
more  to  their  tastes  than  the  burdensome  hon 
ors  of  Egypt.  In  fact,  when  the  Egyptian  cat 
was  not  living  in  sanctified  seclusion  as  the 


184  OLD   WORLD   PETS 

friend  and  favorite  of  Pasht,  she  was  apparent 
ly  earning  a  laborious  livelihood  as  a  retriever, 
if  we  may  trust  a  relic  of  Egyptian  art  in  the 
British  Museum,  which  shows  us  a  magnificent 
animal  carrying  no  less  than  three  struggling 
wild  fowls  in  her  mouth  and  claws.     But  when 
Puss  at  last  entered  Greece  and  Rome,  about 
the  time  of  the  Christian  .era,  or  perhaps  a  cen 
tury  or  two  earlier,  it  was  simply  as  a  plaything; 
and  Mr.  Pater  in  "  Marius  the  Epicurean"  de 
scribes  very  charmingly  the  snow-white  beast 
brought  by  one  of  the  guests  to  a  Roman  ban 
quet,  and  purring  its  way  among  the  wine-cups 
in  response  to  caresses   and  coaxing   words. 
Mrs.  Graham  R.  Tomson,  that  most  winning 
chronicler  of  the  cat's  vicissitudes  and  triumphs, 
has  also  told  us  in  graceful  verse  the  history  of 
a  Greek  lover  who  loses  his  mistress  because 
he  dares  not  bring  her  from  Egypt  one  of  these 
coveted  and  mysterious  creatures: 

"  A  little  lion,  small  and  dainty  sweet, 

(For  such  there  be  !) 

With  sea-grey  eyes  and  softly  stepping  feet, 
She  prayed  of  me. 


OLD  WORLD   PETS  185 

For  this,  through  lands  Egyptian  far  away 

She  bade  me  pass; 
But,  in  an  evil  hour,  I  said  her  nay — 

And  now,  alas  ! 
Far-traveled  Nicias  hath  wooed  and  won 

Arsinoe 
With  gifts  of  furry  creatures  white  and  dun 

From  over-sea." 


In  the  Museum  of  Antiquities,  at  Bordeaux, 
there  is  a  mutilated  tomb  of  the  Gallo-Roman 
period  showing  still  the  indistinct  outlines  of  a 
young  girl  and  her  two  pets  ;  a  cat  clasped — 
very  uncomfortably — in  her  arms,  and,  at  her 
feet,  a  dignified  cock,  which  appears  to  be 
pecking  viciously  at  poor  pussy's  drooping  tail. 

The  few  allusions  we  find  to  the  cat  in  later 
Greek  poetry  are  hardly  of  a  flattering  nature. 
Theocritus  makes  the  impatient  Praxinoe,  in 
his  XVth  Idyl,  say  to  her  handmaid,  "Eunoe, 
bring  the  water  and  put  it  down  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  lazy  creature  that  you  are  !  Cats 
like  always  to  sleep  soft," — quite  as  if  it  were 
disgraceful  in  them  to  enjoy  their  ease.  The 
same  passage  is  interpreted  somewhat  differ 
ently,  and  in  a  still  more  uncharitable  spirit  by 


1 86  OLD   WORLD   PETS 

Mr.  Matthew  Arnold:  "  Eunoe,  pick  up  your 
work,  and  take  care,  lazy  girl,  how  you  leave  it 
lying  about  again  !  The  cats  find  it  just  the 
bed  they  like."  At  least  we  know,  by  this 
token,  that  Puss  was  an  inmate — understood  if 
not  honored — of  the  Alexandrian  household. 
There  is  also  a  dog ;  for  Praxinoe,  on  going 
out>  bids  Phrygia,  the  nurse,  "  Take  the  child, 
and  keep  him  amused  ;  call  in  the  dog,  and 
shut  the  street  door." 

Perhaps  it  was  the  very  diversity  of  pets  that 
so  often  brought  the  cat  into  disgrace.  She  is 
not  wont  to  tolerate  divided  affections,  and  the 
old  primitive,  savage  instincts  are  very  strong 
within  her  little  breast.  Consequently,  there 
comes  down  to  us  out  of  the  past  a  bitter  wail 
of  lamentation  from  foolish  mortals  who  seem 
to  have  forgotten  what  a  natural  and  whole 
some  thing  it  is  for  one  creature  to  devour  an 
other.  Agathias,  a  poet  of  the  sixth  century, 
has  left  us  two  mournful  epigrams  upon  a  favo 
rite  partridge  ruthlessly  done  to  death  by  a 
swift-footed  and  hungry  cat: 

"  O  my  partridge!  Poor  exile  from  the  rocks  and  the 


OLD   WORLD   PETS  l8/ 

heath,  thy  little  willow  house  possesses  thee  no  longer. 
No  more  dost  thou  rustle  thy  wings  in  the  warmth  of 
the  rising  sun.  A  cat  has  torn  off  thy  head.  I  seized 
thy  body  and  rescued  it  from  his  cruel  jaws.  Let  the 
earth  lie  not  too  lightly  on  thee,  lest  thy  enemy  discover 
and  drag  thee  from  thy  quiet  grave." 

The  second  epigram  is  quite  as  disconsolate 
and  more  vengeful  in  its  tone  : 

"The  domestic  cat  which  has  eaten  my  partridge 
flatters  himself  that  he  is  still  to  live  under  my  roof. 
No,  dear  bird,  I  will  not  leave  thee  unavenged,  but  on 
thy  grave  will  I  slay  thy  murderer.  For  thy  shade, 
which  roams  tormented,  cannot  be  quieted  until  I  shall 
have  done  that  which  Pyrrhus  did  upon  the  grave  of 
Achilles." 

As  if  these  direful  threats  were  not  enough, 
Damocharis,  a  disciple  of  Agathias,  follows  up 
the  case  with  a  third  epigram  in  which  he  be 
wails  the  cruelty  of  the  cat,  and  compares  it 
with  burning  eloquence  to  one  of  Aktaeon's 
hounds,  which  devoured  its  own  master.  "  Here 
is  a  pretty  pother  about  a  partridge  !  "  protests 
M.  Champfleury,  with  the  pardonable  irritation 
of  one  who  is  wont  to  deal  leniently  with  the 
shortcomings  of  his  favorite  animal,  and  who 
fails  to  sympathize  with  this  excess  of  grief. 


188  OLD   WORLD   PETS 

Pet  partridges,  indeed,  are  hardly  in  accord 
with  modern  taste,  which  is  apt  to  regard  them 
from  the  same  simple  point  of  view  as  did  the 
cat  of  Agathias.  Neither  is  the  sparrow  a 
popular  plaything  as  in  the  days  when  Lesbia 
wept  inconsolably  for  her  dead  bird,  and  Catul 
lus  sang  in  silvery  strains  to  soothe  her  wound 
ed  heart.  With  what  generous  sympathy  the 
lover  laments  and  calls  on  the  Loves  and 
Graces,  and  on  all  the  fair  youths  of  Rome  to 
lament  with  him  this  shocking  and  irreparable 

loss  : 

"  Dead  my  Lesbia's  sparrow  is, 
Sparrow  that  was  all  her  bliss, 
Than  her  very  eyes  more  dear." 

How  sombre  is  the  picture  he  draws  of  the 
little  petted  creature  that  in  life  never  strayed 
from  the  white  bosom  of  its  mistress,  and  that 
now  must  tread  alone  the  gloomy  pathway 
whence  not  even  a  bird  may  return.  It  is 
really  heartrending  to  listen  to  his  grief: 

"  Out  upon  you  and  your  power 
Which  all  fairest  things  devour, 
Orcus'  gloomy  shades!  that  e'er 
Ye  took  my  Bird  that  was  so  fair. 


OLD   WORLD   PETS  189 

Ah!  the  pity  of  it!    Thou 

Poor  Bird!  thy  doing  'tis  that  now 

My  Loved  One's  eyes  are  swollen  and  red 

With  weeping  for  her  darling  dead."* 

Almost  as  pathetic,  and  quite  as  musical  as  this 
melancholy  dirge,  are  some  of  the  epigrams  to 
be  found  in  that  charming  volume  of  transla 
tions  from  the  Greek  Anthology,  which  Lilla 
Cabot  Perry  has  aptly  entitled  From  the  Garden 
of  Hellas,  Here  we  have  graceful  and  tender 
verses  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  pet  beasts 
and  birds  and  insects,  one  of  them,  indeed,  be 
wailing  the  hard  fate  of  a  locust  and  a  cicada, 
which,  beloved  by  the  same  mistress,  sleep, 
equally  lamented,  side  by  side  : 

"  Unto  the  locust,  nightingale  of  fields, 

And  the -cicada,  who  was  wont  to  drowse 
Through  summer  heat  amid  the  oaken  boughs, 
This  common  tomb  the  maiden  Myro  builds; 
And,  like  a  child,  weeps  that  she  could  not  save 
These  twain,  her  cherished  playthings,  from  the 
grave." 

What  can  be  prettier  than  such  a  requiem  sung 
by  Leonidas,  and  breathing  in  every  line  a 

"^Translated  by  Sir  Theodore  Martin. 


OLD   WORLD   PETS 

sentiment  half  natural,  half  assumed  !  We 
look  back  into  the  past,  and  smile,  but  with  no 
unfeeling  mirth,  to  see  the  tiny  tomb  with  its 
cold  and  silent  inmates  whose  shrill,  amorous 
music  is  hushed  for  evermore.  Nor  were  they 
alone  in  their  sad  distinction,  for  on  every  side 
other  deserving  insects  were  as  decorously  in 
terred,  and  as  tunefully  bewailed.  The  poet 
who  mourned  "for  the  "  maiden  Myro's  "  play 
things,  was  fain  to  sing  with  the  same  ready 
sympathy  and  the  same  charming  grace  the 
praises  of  Philaenida's  pet  locust,  loved  and  lost: 

"  What  if  small,  O  passer-by, 

Be  this  stone!  'tis  mine  you  see. 
What  if  it  you  scarce  descry ! 
Philaenida  gave  it  me. 

"  Praise  her  that  she  held  me  dear, 

Me,  her  little  locust,  singing, 
Whether  in  the  stubble  here 
Or  amid  the  bushes  winging. 

"  Two  long  years  she  loved  me  well, 

Loved  my  drowsy  lullaby; 
Me  e'en  dead  did  not  repel, 
As  these  verses  testify." 

Another  epigram  by   Mnasalcas   bewails  a 


OLD   WORLD   PETS  IQI 

similar  loss,  and  inclines  us  slowly  to  the  pain 
ful  conviction  that  all  Greece  must  have  been 
in  mourning  for  these  short  -  lived  insects, 
which,  like  poor  Hinda's  tantalizing  gazelles, 
appear  to  have  made  a  point  of  dying  just  when 
they  had  grown  most  dear.  It  is  a  positive  re 
lief  to  find  Meleager  dedicating  his  verses  to  a 
pet  cicada  which  is  still  alive  and  enjoying  its 
master's  tender  care  : 

"  Cicada,  you  who  chase  away  desire, 

Cicada,  who  beguile  our  sleepless  hours, 
You  song-winged  muse  of  meadows  and  of  flowers, 
|    Who  are  the  natural  mimic  of  the  lyre, 

Chirp  a  familiar  melody  and  sweet, 

My  weight  of  sleepless  care  to  drive  away; 
Your  love-beguiling  tune  to  me  now  play, 

Striking  your  prattling  wings  with  your  dear  feet. 
In  early  morning  I'll  bring  gifts  to  you 
Of  garlic  ever  fresh  and  drops  of  dew." 

There  is  an  exquisite  description  in  the  first 
Idyl  of  Theocritus  of  a  deep  bowl  of  ivy  wood, 
the  gift  of  a  goatherd  to  the  singer  Thyrsis,  on 
which  is  carved,  among  other  pastoral  scenes, 
a  boy  weaving  a  locust  cage  while  he  guards 
the  vineyard  from  the  foxes.  Just  such  a 


IQ2  OLD   WORLD   PETS 

dainty  toy  he  weaves  as  may  well  have  been 
the  habitation  of  those  luxurious  and  thrice- 
favored  insects,  the  petted  captives  of  Myro 
and  fair  Philsenida: 

"  Now  divided  but  a  little  space  from  the  sea-worn 
old  man  is  a  vineyard  laden  well  with  fire -red  clusters, 
and  on  the  rough  wall  a  little  lad  watches  the  vineyard, 
sitting  there.  Round  him  two  she-foxes  are  skulking, 
and  one  goes  along  the  vine  rows  to  devour  the  ripe 
grapes,  and  the  other  brings  all  her  cunning  to  bear 
against  the  scrip,  and  vows  she  will  never  leave  the  lad 
till  she  strand  him  bare  and  breakfastless.  But  the  boy 
is  plaiting  a  pretty  locust  cage  with  stalks  of  asphodel, 
and  fitting  it  with  reeds;  and  less  care  of  his  scrip  has 
he,  or  of  the  vines,  than  delight  in  his  plaiting."  * 

Kids  and  lambs  are  pastoral  playthings 
which  the  rustic  lovers  of  Theocritus  delight  in 
offering  to  their  fair  ones  ;  and  in  the  Vth  Idyl 
Comatus  complains  to  Lacon  that  he  has  given 
a  bird  to  Alcippe  and  won  from  her  no  kiss  in 
return.  Whereupon  Lacon,  in  the  true  spirit 
of  amorous  boastfulness,  protests  that  he  gave 
but  a  shepherd's  pipe  to  his  maiden, and  sweetly 
she  kissed  and  caressed  him.  A  great  hound, 

*  Translation  of  Mr.  Andrew  Lang. 


OLD   WORLD   PETS  IQ3 

strong  enough  to  strangle  wolves,  a  mixing 
bowl  wrought  by  the  hand  of  Praxiteles,  a  ves 
sel  of  cypress  wood,  a  soft  fleece  from  the 
newly  shorn  ewe,  and  a  brooding  ring-dove 
are  among  the  presents  offered  by  these  shep 
herds  in  generous  rivalry  at  the  shrine  of  love. 
But  by  far  the  most  winning  pet  whose 
memory  has  come  down  to  us  enshrined  in 
Greek  verse  is  the  little  wildwood  hare,  cher 
ished  by  a  young  girl,  and  sung  by  the  poet 
Meleager.  Gentler  and  more  affectionate  than 
Cowper's  sturdy  favorites,  it  shares  with  them  a 
modest  fame,  a  quiet  corner  in  the  long  gallery 
of  prized  and  honored  beasts.  To  those  who 
have  loved  Tiney  and  Puss  from  childhood,  it  is 
a  pleasure  to  see  by  their  side  this  shrinking 
stranger,  this  poor  little  overfed,  much-caressed 
darling  whose  race  was  quickly  run : 


"  From  my  mother's  teats  they  tore  me, 
Little  long-eared  hare,  and  bore  me, 

The  swift-footed,  from  her  breast. 
Phanium,  soft-handed,  fed  me 
On  spring  flowers,  and  nourished  me, 

Fondling  in  her  lap  to  rest. 


194  OLD   WORLD   PETS 

"  No  more  for  my  mother  sighing, 
Feasting  daintily,  then  dying; 

I  by  too  much  food  was  slain. 
And  she  buried  me  with  weeping 
Near  her  house,  that  she,  while  sleeping, 
Me  in  dreams  might  see  again."* 

On  what  smooth  Elysian  sward  does  this  little 
Grecian  hare  sport  with  his  English  cousins  ? 
Fed,  perchance,  by  Persephone's  white  hand, 
they  gambol  for  evermore  by  the  deep  waters 
of  Oblivion;  and  the  gray  ghosts,  flitting  by, 
smile  with  sad  eyes  upon  the  nimble  creatures 
who,  shadows  in  shadowland,  yet  bear  in  every 
limb  rich  memories  of  woodland  glade,  and  of 
the  dear,  life-giving  soil  of  earth. 

*  Translation  of  Lilla  Cabot  Perry. 


BATTLE  OF  THE  BABIES 

A  WARFARE  has  been  raging  in  our 
midst,  the  echoes  of  which  have  hardly 
yet  died  sullenly  away  upon  either  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  It  has  been  a  bloodless  and  un- 
Homeric  strife,  not  without  humorous  side-is 
sues,  as  when  Pistol  and  Bardolph  and  Fluel- 
len  come  to  cheer  our  anxious  spirits  at  the 
siege  of  Harfleur.  /  Its  first  guns  were  heard  in 
New  York,  where  a  modest  periodical,  devot 
ed  to  the  training  of  parents,  opened  fire  upon 
those  time-honored  nursery  legends  which  are 
presumably  dear  to  the  hearts  of  all  rightly 
constituted  babies.  The  leader  of  this  gallant 
foray  protested  vehemently  against  all  fairy 
tales  of  a  mournful  or  sanguinary  cast,  and  her 
denunciation  necessarily  included  many  stories 
which  have  for  generations  been  familiar  to 
every  little  child.  She  rejected  Red  Riding 
Hood,  because  her  own  infancy  was  haunted 
195 


* 

196  BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES 

and  embittered  by  the  evil  behavior  of  the 
wolf;  she  would  have  none  of  Bluebeard,  be 
cause  he  was  a  wholesale  fiend  and  murderer; 
she  would  not  even  allow  the  pretty  Babes  in 
the  Wood,  because  they  tell  a  tale  of  cold- 
hearted  cruelty  and  of  helpless  suffering; 
while  all  fierce  narratives  of  giants  and  ogres 
and  magicians  were  to  be  banished  ruthlessly 
from  our  shelves.  Verily,  reading  will  be  but 
gentle  sport  in  the  virtuous  days  to  come. 

Now  it  chanced  that  this  serious  protest 
against  nursery  lore  fell  into  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang,  the  most  light-hearted  and 
conservative  of  critics,  and  partial  withal  to 
tales  of  bloodshed  and  adventure.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise  with  one  reared  on  the  bleak 
border  land,  and  familiar  from  infancy  with  the 
wild  border  legends/that  Sir  Walter  knew  and 
loved;  with  stories  of  Thomas  the  Rhymer, 
and  the  plundering  Hardens,  and  the  black 
witches  of  Loch  Awe  !  It  was  natural  that 
with  the  echoes  of  the  old  savage  strife  ringing 
in  his  ears,  and  with  the  memories  of  the  dour 
Scottish  bogies  and  warlocks  lingering  in  his 


BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES  197 

heart,  Mr.  Lang  could  but  indifferently  sym 
pathize  with  those  anxious  parents  who  think 
the  stories  of  Bluebeard  and  Jack  the  Giant 
Killer  too  shocking  for  infant  ears  to  hear. 
Our  grandmothers,  he  declared,  were  not 
ferocious  old  ladies,  yet  they  told  us  these 
tales,  and  many  more  which  we  were  none 
the  worse  for  hearing.  "  Not  to  know  them  is 
to  be  sadly  ignorant,  and  to  miss  that  which 
all  people  have  relished  in  all  ages."  More 
over,  it  is  apparent  to  him,  and  indeed  to  most 
of  us,  that  we  cannot  take  even  our  earliest 
steps  in  the  world  of  literature,  or  in  the  shad 
ed  paths  of  knowledge,  without  encountering 
suffering  and  sin  in  some  shape;  while,  as  we 
advance  a  little  further,  these  grisly  forms  fly 
ever  on  before.  "  Cain,"  remarks  Mr.  Lang, 
'*  killed  .Abel.  The  flood  drowned  quite  a 
number  of  persons.  David  was  not  a  stainless 
knight,  and  Henry  VIII.  was  nearly  as  bad  as 
Bluebearcj^Several  deserving  gentlemen  were 
killed  at  'Marathon.  Front  de  Bceuf  came  to 
an  end  shocking  to  sensibility,  and  to  Mr.  Rus- 
kin."  /The  Arabian  Nights,  Pilgrints  Prog- 


198  BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES 


y  Paul  and  Virginia  —  all  the  dear  old  nur 
sery  favorites  must,  under  the  new  dispensa 
tion,  be  banished  from  our  midst;  and  the  ris 
ing  generation  of  prigs  must  be  nourished  ex 
clusively  on  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy,  and  other 
carefully  selected  specimens  of  milk-and-water 
diet. 

The  prospect  hardly  seems  inviting;  but  as 
the  English  guns  rattled  merrily  away  in  be 
half  of  English  tradition,  they  were  promptly 
met  by  an  answering  roar  from  this  side  of  the 
water.  A  Boston  paper  rushed  gallantly  to 
the  defense  of  the  New  York  periodical,  and 
gave  Mr.  Lang  —  to  use  a  pet  expressipn'of  his 
own  —  "  his  kail  through  the  reek."  -American 
children,  it  appears,  are  too  sensitively  organ 
ized  to  endure  the  unredeemed  ferocity  of  the 
old  fairy  stories.  The  British  child  may  sleep 
soundly  in  its  little  cot  after  hearing  about  the 
Babes  in  the  Wood;  the  American  infant  is 
prematurely  saddened  by  such  unmerited  mis 
fortune.  "  If  a  consensus  of  American  moth 
ers  could  be  taken,"  says  the  Boston  writer, 
"  our  English  critic  might  be  infinitely  dis- 


BATTLE  OF  THE   BABIES  199 

gusted  to  know  in  how  many  nurseries  these 
cruel  tales  must  be  changed,  or  not  told  at  all 
to  the  children  of  less  savage  generations.  No 
mother  nowadays  tells  them  in  their  unmiti 
gated  brutality." 

Is  this  true,  I  wonder,  and  are  our  supersen- 
itive  babies  reared  perforce  on  the  optimistic 
version  of  Red  Riding  Hood,  where  the  wolf 
is  cut  open  by  the  woodman,  and  the  little 
girl  and  her  grandmother  jump  out,  safe  and 
sound  ?  Their  New  England  champion  speaks 
of  the  "  intolerable  misery" — a  very  strong 
phrase — which  he  suffered  in  infancy  from  hav 
ing  his  nurse  tell  him  of  the  Babes  in  the 
Wood;  while  the  Scriptural  stories  were  appar 
ently  every  whit  as  unbearable  and  heart 
breaking.  "  I  remember,"  he  says,  "  two  chil 
dren,  strong,  brave  man  and  woman  now,  who 
in  righteous  rage  plucked  the  Slaughter  of  the 
Innocents  out  from  the  family  Bible."  This 
was  a  radical  measure,  to  say  the  least,  and  if 
many  little  boys  and  girls  started  in  to  expur 
gate  the  Scriptures  in  such  liberal  fashion,  the 
holy  book  would  soon  present  a  sadly  mutilat- 


200  BATTLE   OF   THE  BABIES 

ed  appearance.  Moreover,  it  seems  to  me 
that  such  an  anecdote,  narrated  with  admira 
ble  assurance,  reveals  very  painfully  the  lack 
of  a  fine  and  delicate  spirituality  in  the  re 
ligious  training  of  children;  of  that  grace  and 
distinction  which  are  akin  to  saintship,  and  are 
united  so  charmingly  in  those  to  whom  truth 
has  been  inseparably  associated  with  beauty. 
There  is  a  painting  by  Ghirlandaio  hanging 
over  the  altar  in  the  chapel  of  the  Foundling 
Asylum  in  Florence.  It  represents  the  Adora 
tion  of  the  Magi,  and  kneeling  by  the  side  of 
the  Wise  Men  is  a  little  group  of  the  Holy  In 
nocents,  their  tiny  garments  stained  with 
blood,  their  hands  clasped  in  prayer;  while  the 
Divine  Child  turns  from  his  mother's  embraces, 
and  from  the  kings'  rich  gifts  to  greet  the  little 
companions  who  have  yielded  up  their  spotless 
lives  for  him.  Now,  surely  those  lean,  brown 
Florentine  orphans,  who  have  always  before 
their  eyes  this  beautiful  and.tender  picture,  ab 
sorb  through  it  alone  a  religious  sentiment  un- 
felt  by  American  children  who  are  familiar 
only  with  the  ugly  and  inane  prints  of  Ameri- 


BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES  2OI 

can  Sunday-schools,  in  which  I  have  known 
the  line,  "My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord,"  to 
be  illustrated  by  a  man  with  a  magnifying- 
glass  in  his,  hand.  Possibly  our  Sunday- 
school  scholars,  being  more  accurately  in 
structed  as  to  dates,  could  inform  the  little 
Florentines  that  the  Innocents  were  not 
slaughtered  until  after  the  Magi  had  returned 
to  the  East.  But  no  child  who  had  looked 
day  after  day  upon  Ghirlandaio's  lovely  pic 
ture — more  appealing  in  its  pathos  than  Hoi- 
man  Hunt's  brilliant  and  jocund  Triumph  of 
the  Innocents — could  desire  to  pluck  "in 
righteous  rage  "  that  chapter  from  the  Bible. 
He  would  have  at  least  some  dim  and  imper 
fect  conception  of  the  spiritual  meaning,  the 
spiritual  joy,  which  underlie  the  pain  and  hor 
ror  of  the  story. 

This  reflection  will  help  us  in  some  measure 
to  come  to  a  decision,  when  we  return  to  the 
kvexed  problem  of  nursery  tales  and  legends. 

believe  it  is  as  well  to  cultivate  a  child's 
emotions  as  to  cultivate  his  manners  or  his 
morals,  and  the  first  step  in  such  a  direction  is 


202  BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES 

necessarily  taken  through  the  stories  told  him 
in  infancy.  If  a  consensus  of  mothers  would 
reject  the  good  old  fairy  tales  "in  their  unmit 
igated  brutality,"  a  consensus  of  men  of  letters 
would  render  a  different  verdict;  and  such 
men,  who  have  been  children  in  their  time, 
and  who  look  back  with  wistful  delight  upon 
the  familiar  figures  who  were  their  earliest 
friends,  are  entitled  to  an  opinion  in  the  case. 
How  admirable  was  the  "righteous  rage"  of 
Charles  Lamb,  when  he  wanted  to  buy  some 
of  these  same  brutal  fairy  stories  for  the  little 
Coleridges,  and  could  find  nothing  but  the 
correct  and  commonplace  literature  which  his 
whole  soul  abhorred!  "Mrs.  Barbauld's  and 
Mrs.  Trimmer's  nonsense  lay  in  piles  about,", 
he  wrote  indignantly  to  papa  Coleridge,  "and 
have  banished  all  the  old  classics  of  the  nur 
sery.  Knowledge,  insignificant  and  vapid  as 
Mrs.  Barbauld's  books  convey,  must,  it  seems, 
come  to  a  child  in  the  shape  of  knowledge; 
and  his  empty  noddle  must  be  turned  with 
conceit  of  his  own  powers  when  he  has  learnt 
that  a  horse  is  an  animal,  and  that  Billy  is 


BATTLE   OF  THE   BABIES  203 

better  than  a  horse,  and  such  like;  instead  of 
that  beautiful  interest  in  wild  tales  which  made 
the  child  a  man,  while  all  the  time  he  suspected 

himself  to  be  no  bigger  than  a  child." 

A 
Just  such  a 'wild  tale,  fantastic  rather  than 

beautiful,  haunted  Chateaubriand  all  his  life — 
the  story  of  Count  Combourg's  wooden  leg, 
which,  three  hundred  years  after  its  owner's 
death,  was  seen  at  night  walking  solemnly 
down  the  steep  turret  stairs,  attended  by  a 
huge  black  ca^/Nat  at  all  the  kind  of  story 
we  would  sele'ct  to  tell  a  child  nowadays.  By 
no  means !  Even  the  little  Chateaubriand 
heard  it  from  peasant  lips.  Yet  in  after  years, 
when  he  had  fought  the  battle  of  life,  and 
fought  it  with  success;  when  he  had  grown 
gray,  and  illustrious,  and  disillusioned,  and 
melancholy,  what  should  come  back  to  his 
mind,  with  its  old  pleasant  flavor  of  terror 
and  mystery,  but  the  vision  of  Count  Com 
bourg's  wooden  leg  taking  its  midnight  consti 
tutional,  with  the  black  cat  stepping  softly  on 
before  ?  So  he  notes  it  gravely  down  in  his 
Memoirs,  just  as  Scott  notes  in  his  diary  the 


2O4  BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES 

pranks  of  Whippity  Stourie,  the  Scotch  bogie 
that  steals  at  night  into  open  nursery  win- 
dows:#6d  just  as  Heine,  in  gay,  sunlit  Paris, 
recalls  with  joy  the  dark,  sweet,  sombre  tales 
of  the  witch  and  fairy  haunted  forests  of  Ger 
many. 

These  are  impressions  worth  recording,  and 
they  are  only  a  few  out  of  many  which  may  be 
gathered  from  similar  sources.../  That  which  is 
vital  in  literature  or  tradition,  which  has  sur 
vived  the  obscurity  and  wreckage  of  the  past, 
whether  as  legend,  or  ballad,  or  mere  nursery 
rhyme,  has  survived  in  right  of  some  intrinsic 
merit  of  its  own,  and  will  not  be  snuffed  out  of 
existence  by  any  of  our  precautionary  or  hy 
gienic  measures.  We  could  not  banish  Blue 
beard  if  we  would.  He  is  as  immortal  as  Ham 
let,  and  when  hundreds  of  years  shall  have 
passed  over  tiri^  Uncomfortably  enlightened 
world,  the  children  of  the  future — who,  thank 
Heaven,  can  never,  with  all  our  efforts,  be 
born  grown  up — will  still  tremble  at  the  blood 
stained  key,  and  rejoice  when  the  big  brave 
brothers  come  galloping  up  the  road.  We 


BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIES 

could  not  even  rid  ourselves  of  Mother  Goose, 
thou'gli  she,  too,  has  her  mortal  enemies,  who 
protest  periodically  against  her  cruelty  and 
grossness.  We  could  not  drive  Punch  and 
Judy  from  our  midst,  though  Mr.  Punch's  der 
elictions  have  been  the  subject  of  much  serious 
and  adverse  criticism;''"  It  is  not  by  s-uch  bar 
barous  rhymes-  o£-J*y  such  brutal  spectacles 
that  we  teach  a  child  the  lessons  of  integrity 
and  gentleness,  explain  our  nursery  moralists, 
and  probably  they  are  correct.  Moreover, 
Bluebeard  does  not  teach  a  lesson  of  conjugal 
felicity,  and  Cinderella  is  full  of  the  world's 
vanities,  and  Puss  in  Boots  is  one  long  record 
of  triumphant  effrontery  and  deception.  An 
honest  and  self-respecting  lad  would  have  ex 
plained  to  the  king  that  he  was  not  the  Mar 
quis  of  Carabas  at  all;  that  he  had  no  desire  to 
profit  by  his  cat's  ingenious  falsehoods,  and  no 
weak  ambition  to  connect  himself  with  the 
aristocracy.  Such  a  hero  would  be  a  credit  to 
our  modern  schoolrooms,  and  lift  a  load  of 
care  from  the  shoulders  of  our  modern  critics. 
Only  the  children  would  have  none  of  him, 


206  BATTLE   OF   THE   BABIE3 

but  would  turn  wistfully  back  to  those  brave 
old  tales  which  are  their  inheritance  from  a 
splendid  past,  and  of  which  no  hand  shall 
rob  them. 


THE   NOVEL  OF  INCIDENT 

A  GREAT  deal  of  generous  scorn  has  been 
expended  of  late  years  upon  those  old- 
fashioned  novels  in  which  the  characters  were 
given  plenty  to  do,  and  did  it  with  a  supreme 
energy  and  passion,  only  possible,  perhaps, 
within  the  enchanted  precincts  of  fiction.  .Such 
stories,  we  are  told,  are  false  to  life,  which  is 
monotonous,  uneventful,  and  made  up  day  by 
day  of  minute  and  tedious  detail,  small  pleas 
ures  which  are  hardly  recognizable  as  such, 
and  grim  vexations  which  can  never  be  per 
suaded  to  assume  noble  or  heroic  proportions. 
The  truthful  representation  of  life  being  the 
only  worthy  object  of  a  novelist's  skill,  it  fol 
lows  that  his  tale  should  be  destitute  of  any  in 
cidents  save  those  with  which  we  are  all  famil 
iar  in  the  narrow  routine  of  existence.  We 

should  be  able  to  verify  them  by  experience — 
207 


208  THE   NOVEL   OF   INCIDENT 

to  prove  them,  as  children  prove  their  exam 
ples  at  school. 

To  meet  these  current  severities  of  realism, 
the  advocates  of  a  livelier  fiction  unite  in  saying 
a  great  many  sarcastic  and  amusing  things 
about  the  deadly  dulness  of  their  opponents; 
about  the  hero  and  heroine  who,  in  the  course 
of  three  volumes,  "  agree  not  to  become  en- 
gaged,"  and  about  the  lady's  subtle  reasons  for 
dropping  her  handkerchief,  or  passing  a  cruet 
at  table.  It  may  be  hard  work  to  build  up  a 
novel  out  of  nothing,  they  admit,  but  we  can 
only  echo  Dr.  Johnson's  words,  and  wish  it 
were  impossible.  Where  is  the  gain  in  this 
perpetual  unfolding  of  the  obvious  ?  What  is 
the  advantage  of  wasting  genuine  ability  upon 
a  task  the  difficulties  of  which  constitute  its 
sole  claim  to  distinction  ?  x 

But  is  the  so-called  novel  of  character  more 
difficult  to  write  than  the  novel  of  romance  ? 
This  question  can  be  answered  satisfactorily 
only  by  an  author  who  has  done  both  kinds  of 
work  sufficiently  well  to  make  his  opinion -val 
uable;  and,  so  far,  no  such  versatile  genius  has 


THE   NOVEL    OF   INCIDENT  2OQ 

appeared  in  the  field  of  letters.  If  we  may 
judge  by  results,  we  should  say  that  artistic  la 
bor  is  as  rare  in  one  school  of  fiction  as  in  the 
other,  and  apparently  as  far  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  ordinary  champion  in  the  arena.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  be  analytic;  but  it  is  extremely  hard 
to  be  luminous,  or  interpretative,  or  to  know 
when  analysis  counts.  It  is  easy  to  stuffa  book 
full  of  incidents;  but  it  is  hard  to  make  those 
incidents  living  pages  in  literatureY  After  De 
Foe  had  led  the  way  with  Robinson  Crusoe,  a 
whole  army  of  imitators  wrote  similar  tales  of 
adventure;  but  Robinson  Crusoe  is  to-day  the 
only  shipwrecked  mariner  whose  every  action 
awakens  interest  and  delight.  Mr.  Stevenson 
in  The  Black  Arrow,  and  Mr.  Rider  Hag 
gard  in  Nada  the  Lily,  have  given  us  stories 
rich  in  horrors  which  do  not  horrify,  and  ex 
citements  which  do  not  excite.  Mr.  Stevenson's 
tale  is  one  bewildering  succession  of  murders, 
plots,  hairbreadth  escapes,  bloody  skirmishes, 
and  perils  by  field  and  flood;  yet  a  gentle  in 
difference  as  to  which  side  wins  is  the  only  dis 
tinct  sentiment  with  which  we  follow  the  wind- 


210  THE   NOVEL   OF   INCIDENT 

ings  of  his  narrative.  Sir  Daniel  is  a  perjured 
villain;  but  it  is  with  no  stern  sense  of  just  ret 
ribution  that  we  see  him  fall  under  the  fatal 
arrow.  Master  Dick  is  a  stout  young  soldier; 
but  where  is  the  breathless  attention  with  which 
we  pursue  every  step  of  another  young  soldier, 
equally  brave  and  quick-witted,  Quentin  Dur- 
ward  of  Glen-houlakin  ?  Even  Joan  in  her 
doublet  and  hose — a  device  dear  to  the  heart 
of  the  romanticist — is  almost  as  uninteresting 
as  Joan  in  her  petticoats;  though  perhaps  the 
most  striking  scene  in  the  book  is  that  in  which 
Dick  endeavors  with  hearty  good  will  to  ad 
minister  a  little  well-deserved  chastisement  to 
the  supposed  boy,  and  finds  himself  withheld 
by  some  subtle  apprehension  of  a  secret  he  is 
far  from  suspecting.  ^  To  compare  The  Black 
Arrow  with  Ivanhoe  or  Quentin  Durward 
is  manifestly  unjust.  It  is  no  shame  to  any 
man  to  be  surpassed  by  Scott.  But  when 
we  remember  the  admirable  and  satisfying 
events  in  Treasure  Island,  or  the  well-sus 
tained  interest  of  Kidnapped,  it  seems  in 
credible  that  Mr.  Stevenson,  of  all  novelists, 


THE  NOVEL  OF  INCIDENT  211 

should  have  succeeded  in  telling  a  lifeless  story 
of  adventure. 

As  for  Nada  the  Lily,  its  incidents  are  too 
monotonously  painful  to  do  more  than  distress 
the  reader.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  great 
er  number  of  people  die  in  the  course  of  this 
tale  than  in  all  the  rest  of  English  fiction,  ex 
clusive  of  Mr.  Haggard's  other  novels.  They 
die  singly,  in  pairs,  in  groups,  in  armies,  in 
whole  tribes.  They  die  in  battle,  by  fire,  by 
torture,  by  starvation,  at  the  hands  of  pitiless 
slaughterers,  and  under  the  fangs  of  ghost 
wolves.  They  clie  for  every  imaginable  cause, 
and  under  every  conceivable  circumstance.  To 
keep  the  death-rate  of  such  a  story  would  be 
like  keeping  the  death-rate  of  the  Deluge. 
There  is  the  same  comprehensive  and  all-em 
bracing  destruction.  This  may  be  true  to  Zulu 
history — in  fact,  Mr.  Haggard  tells  us  as  much 
in  his  preface  to  "  Nada,"  and  few  people  are 
in  a  position  to  dispute  the  point;  but  it  is  rad-  » 
ically  false  to  art,  and  impairs  the  natural  vig 
or  of  the  tale.  While  one  tragedy  may  be  som 
bre  and  impressive,  a  dozen  are  apt  to  be  fa- 


212  THE   NOVEL   OF   INCIDENT 

tiguing,  and  half  a  hundred  border  closely  on 
the  burlesque.  Chaka,  "  a  Napoleon  and  Ti 
berius  in  one,"  reminds  the  irreverent  reader  ir 
resistibly  of  the  Queen  in  A  lice  in  Wonderland, 
who  is  all  the  time  saying, "  Off  with  his  head  ! " 
and  ordering  everybody  to  execution;  the  only 
difference  being  that  the  Queen's  victims  turn 
up  blandly  in  the  next  chapter,  and  Chaka's 
never  reappear.  He  it  is  who  slays  Unandi 
his  mother,  Baleka  his  wife,  all  his  children 
save  one,  all  his  enemies,  and  most  of  his 
friends.  Then  his  turn  comes — and  none  too 
soon — to  be  murdered,  and  Dingaan  his  broth 
er,  "who  had  the  fierce  heart  of  Chaka  without 
its  greatness,"  sets  to  work  systematically  to  kill 
everybody  who  chances  to  be  left.  By  the  time 
he,  too,  is  flung  over  the  cliff  to  die,  Mopo  and 
Umslopogaas  alone  survive;  the  first  because  he 
has  to  tell  the  tale — after  which  he  promptly  ex 
pires — and  the  second  because  he  has  already 
been  slain  in  battle  during  the  progress  of  an 
other  story.  The  most  curious  thing  about  this 
wholesale  devastation  is  that  Mr.  Haggard  ap 
parently  deplores  it  as  much  as  the  rest  of  us.  "  It 


THE   NOVEL  OF   INCIDENT  213 

would  have  been  desirable  to  introduce  some 
gayer  and  more  happy  incidents,"  he  admits  in 
his  preface, '  *  but  it  has  not  been  possible  T  Why 
has  it  not  been  possible,  we  wonder  ?  It  is  the 
privilege  of  a  novelist  to  select  or  discard  ma 
terial  according  to  his  good  judgment.  He  is  not 
writing  a  history;  he  is  telling  a  story.  He  is 
not  chronicling  events ;  he  is  weaving  a  romance. 
He  is  an  artist,  not  a  recorder;  and  in  the 
choice  as  well  as  in  the  use  of  material  lies  the 
test  of  unblemished  art. 

What,  then,  is  the  vital  charm  which  makes 
the  novel  of  incident  true  literature — the  charm 
possessed  by  Dumas,  and  Fielding,  and  Sir  Wal 
ter  Scott  ?  Mr.  Birrell,  who  is  always  in  love 
with  plain  definitions,  says  that  if  a  book  be 
full  of  "  inns,  atmosphere,  and  motion,"  then  it 
is  a  good  book,  and  he  asks  no  more.  Mr. 
Lang,  who  shares  this  hearty  sympathy  for  ac 
tion,  acknowledges  that  the  best  results  are  of 
ten  obtained  by  the  simplest  machinery.  "  Du 
mas,"  he  declares,  "  requires  no  more  than  a 
room  in  an  inn,  where  people  meet  in  riding- 
cloaks,  to  move  the  heart  with  the  last  degree 


214  THE   NOVEL   OF   INCIDENT 

of  pity  and  terror."  Scott  handles  incident 
with  the  matchless  skill  of  a  great  story-teller. 
He  shows  the  same  instinctive  art  in  his  situ 
ations  that  a  great  painter  like  Rembrandt 
shows  in  his  grouping.  Every  figure  falls  so 
inevitably  into  his  right  place  that  it  is  impos 
sible  for  us  to  imagine  him  in  any  other.  Henry 
Bertram's  return  to  Ellengowan  is  one  of  the 
most  artistic  and  charming  scenes  in  fiction, 
though  it  is  described  with  such  careless  sim 
plicity.  Perplexed  and  fascinated  by  the  child 
ish  memories  tugging  at  his  heartstrings,  the 
young  laird  gazes  at  his  ancestral  home,  and 
listens  with  rapture — which  we  share — to  the 
fragment  of  a  long-forgotten  yet  familiar  song: 

"  Are  these  the  Links  of  Forth,"  she  said, 
"  Or  are  they  the  crooks  of  Dee, 
Or  the  bonnie  woods  of  Warroch-he,ad- 
That  I  so  fain  would  see  ?  " 

may  be  people  who  are  in  no  way 
moved  by  this  home-coming,  and  who  feel  nojoy 
when  Queen  Mary's  boat  glides  over  the  dark 
waters  of  Lochleven,  and  no  horror  at  that  ill- 
omened  churchyard  gossip  which  ushers  in  the 


THE   NOVEL   OF   INCIDENT 

dreadful  wedding  of  Lammermoor.  I  do  not 
envy  them  their  composure;  but  what  of  King 
Louis's  visit  to  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  in 
Quentin  Bur-ward,  a  situation  so  tense  with 
passion  that  the  least  imaginative  reader  may 
well  tremble  'at  the  possibilities  of  every  min 
ute  ?  What  of  the  sacking  of  Liege,  the  siege 
of  Front  de  Boeuf's  castle,  the  trial  of  Rebecca, 
the  battle  of  Bothwell  Bridge  ?  He  who  could 
carry  a  chilly  indifference  through  such  narra 
tives  as  these  would  not  care  if  Shylock  gained 
his  suit,  or  King  Harry  lost  the  field  of  Agin- 
court.  I  doubt  if  he  would  really  care  whether 
Hector  or  Achilles  won  the  fight. 

The  casual  incidents  of  life,  the  trivial  possi 
bilities  of  every  day,  are  treated  by  Dickens 
with  extraordinary  humor  and  skill ;  witness 
David  Copperfield's  journey  to  Dover,  and 
Oliver  Twist's  first  introduction  to  Fagin's  den. 
But  his  great  situations  are  apt  to  be  theatrical 
rather  than  dramatic.  It  is  not  often  that  he 
reaches  the  sombre  strength  and  passion  of 
that  memorable  scene  where  the  convict  re 
veals  to  Pip  the  secret  of  his  mysterious  wealth. 


2l6  THE   NOVEL   OF   INCIDENT 

do  not  know  whether  a  great  many  people 
read  Bulwer's  novels  nowadays.  They  belong 
to  a  past  generation,  which  perhaps  was  luckier 
than  the  present.  But  I  do  know  that  the  res 
cue  of  Glaucus  from  the  arena  was  an  epoch  in 
my  childhood,  and  the  cry  of  joy  that  rings 
from  Nydia's  lips  rang  in  my  heart  for  years. 
I  have  an  inexpressible  tenderness  now  for 
The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  because  of  the  pas 
sionate  suspense  with  which  I  read  it  when  I 
was  a  little  girl,  and  the  supreme  gasp  of  relief 
with  which  I  hailed  the  arrival  of  Sallust  and 
Calenus,  while  the  lion  crouches  trembling  in 
his  cage.  It  is  not  easy  to  criticise  a  book 
linked  with  such  vivid  memories,  and  perhaps 
it  is  the  association  with  early  pleasures  which 
gilds  for  many  of  us  the  beguiling  pages  of  ro 
mance.  "  We  are  all  homesick,  in  the  dark 
days  and  black  towns,  for  the  land  of  blue 
skies  and  brave  adventures  in  forests,  and  in 
lonely  inns,  on  the  battle-field,  in  the  prison, 
on  the  desert  isle."  It  is  useless,  and  worse 
than  useless,  to  dispute  over  the  respective 
schools  of  fiction,  instead  of  gladly  enjoying 


THE  NOVEL  OF  INCIDENT  2I/ 

that  which  we  like  best ;  and  there  are  different' 
kinds  of  enjoyment  for  different  kinds  of  work. 
For  my  part,  the  good  novel  of  character  is 
the  novel  I  can  always  pick  up ;  but  the  good 
novel  of  incident  is  the  novel  I  can  never  lay 
down^J 


GHOSTS 

HOSTS  enjoy  a  curious  popularity  in  Eng- 
land  to-day.  Years  ago  they  fell  into 
unmerited  disfavor;  and  for  a  century  and  a 
half  they  battled  with  scant  success  against  that 
arrogant  wave  of  reason  and  common  sense 
which  chilled  the  fair  fields  of  poetry,  swept 
romance  from  the  land,  and  left  the  sombre 
glades  of  superstition  tenantless  and  bare  of 
every  horror.  From  time  to  time,  indeed,  the 
exiled  ghosts,  like  the  exiled  gods  of  Olympos, 
strove  to  regain  their  lost  ascendency;  but 
there  was  something  pitifully  vulgar  about 
their  trivial  triumphs.  Apparitions  whose  mod 
est  mission  was  to  sell  a  volume  of  dull  sermons 
upon  death,  or  to  stir  up  a  clamorous  mob  in 
Cock  Lane,  could  scarcely  aspire  to  a  dignified 
position  in  the  spirit  world.  Even  their  local 
coloring,  though  it  lent  them  a  transient  estima 
tion  with  the  public,  told  against  them  in  the 
218 


GHOSTS  219 

end;  for  the  city  streets,  and  that  highly 
vaunted  bulwark  of  the  nation,  the  great  re 
spectable  middle  class,  are  not  harmonious 
accessories  of  the  supernatural.  As  for  the 
educated  people,  who  now  reverently  await  each 
new  development  of  the  impossible,  theirs  was 
a  different  attitude  one  hundred  years  ago. 
Men  who  read  Pope  and  Swift  and  Addison, 
whose  heads  were  clear,  whose  hearts  were 
cold,  whose  faith  was  limited,  and  whose  diges 
tions  defied  high  living,  could  ill  attune  their 
minds  to  the  "  dark  sweet  horror  "  of  mediaeval 
ghost  lore.  "  The  Deevil  never  appears  to  a 
man  that 's  no  frichtened  aforehaun  out  o'  his 
seven  senses,"  says  the  Ettrick  Shepherd ;  and 
he  lived  in  Scotland,  where  skepticism  failed  to 
attain  the  easy  supercilious  composure  of  her 
English  sister;  in  Scotland,  where  the  exiled 
fairies  and  witches  shared  with  the  exiled  Stuarts 
the  just  affections  of  a  loyal  race. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  Sir  Walter  was 
secretly  enamored  of  the  superstitions  which 
he  affected  to  disregard,  and  which  the  stupid 
prejudices  of  his  day  would  not  permit  him  to 


22O  GHOSTS 

enjoy  in  peace.  What  can  be  more  pathetic 
than  the  contrast  between  his  robust  denials 
and  his  quick,  half-smothered  sympathy  for 
all  eerie  things?  How  well  he  tells  the  tale 
of  the  apparition  seen  by.  Lord  Londonderry, 
—  the  naked  child  who  emerged  from  the  dying 
embers  of  the  grate,  and  who,  like  Faust's  terri 
ble  hound,  increased  in  size  as  he  approached 
the  curtained  and  recessed  bed.  Lord  London 
derry,  Scott  explains  somewhat  peevishly,  was 
the  only  man  he  knew  to  whom  a  veritable 
ghost  had  ever  appeared,  and  he  is  burdened 
with  the  conviction  that  it  may  be  his  duty  to 
offer  some  explanation  of  the  mystery.  As 
for  the  supernatural  element  in  his  novels,  it  is 
almost  always  a  failure;  not  from  lack  of  im 
agination  or  of  vivid  power,  for  the  mingled 
horror  and  humor  and  pathos  of  "  Wandering 
Willie's  Tale  "  have  never  been  surpassed,  but 
because  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived  was 
unfavorable  to  the  full  development  of  such 
lawless  fancies.  The  White  Lady  of  Avenel 
is  one  of  the  tamest  spirits  in  all  fiction.  Good 
Protestants  may  have  rejoiced  in  the  sound- 


GHOSTS  221 

ness  of  her  religious  principles;  but  it  is  not 
the  place  of  apparitions  to  be  progressive  and 
enlightened.  If  they  know  what  is  best  for 
them,  they  will  cling  to  the  old  order,  for  when 
it  passes  away  it  takes  their  strongest  con 
stituency  along  with  it.  I  sometimes  fear  that 
modern  ghosts  are  being  lured  to  their  destruc 
tion  by  the  new  semi-scientific  methods  of 
research,  which  beguile  them  with  a  show  of 
respect  and  a  little  worthless  notoriety,  but 
which  in  the  end  will  rob  them  of  their  heritage, 
—  that  shadowy  power  which  has  come  down 
from  the  dim  past  to  be  bartered  away  at  last, 
like  Esau's  birthright,  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 

If  proof  were  wanted  of  the  low  estate,  to 
which  the  English  eighteenth-century  ghosts 
had  been  reduced,  it  might  be  found  in  the 
spasmodic  efforts  made  to  win  them  a  place  in 
literature.  That  Walpole,  of  all  men  in  Chris 
tendom,  should  have  attempted  this,  is  one  of 
those  pleasant  ironies  which  cheer  the  humor 
ist's  path.  That  educated  adults  should  have 
read  The  Castle  of  Otranto  with  little  thrills 
of  horror  helps  us  to  understand  what  otherwise 


222      ,  GHOSTS 

would  be  a  hopeless  mystery,  —  the  amazing 
popularity  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  novels.  We  are 
required  to  believe,  on  excellent  authority,  that 
when  the  newly  printed  Mysteries  of  Udolpho 
appeared  in  quiet  country  homes,  it  was  literally 
torn  to  pieces,  so  that  each  eager  member  of  the 
household  could  seize  a  portion  without  unnec 
essary  delay.  Thousands  of  young  women 
lived,  like  Catherine  Morland,  in  a  delightful 
atmosphere  of  gloom  and  excitation,  whispering 
by  candle-light,  with  bated  breath,  of  dungeons 
and  black-robed  messengers  of  evil,  and  awful 
secrets  forever  on  the  tantalizing  verge  of  reve 
lation.  Yet  Mrs.  Radcliffe  never  got  beyond 
the  bare  machinery,  the  stage-work  and  scaffold 
ing  of  mystery.  Her  novels  are  as  much  akin 
to  the  terrible  tales  of  Germany  as  are  the 
frolicsome  apes  and  witches  of  Mr.  Irving's 
Faust  to  Goethe's  ministers  of  sin.  What  is 
there  in  all  the  endless  pages  of  Udolpho 
to  compare  with  that  single  incident  in  the 
story  of  Pretty  Annerl,  when  the  child  goes 
with  her  grandmother  to  the  house  of  the  heads 
man,  and  the  great  hidden  sword,  by  which  she 


GHOSTS  223 

is  destined  to  die,  is  heard  stirring  uneasily  in 
the  cupboard  ?  Annerl,  believing  it  to  be  an 
animal,  is  frightened,  and  begins  to  cry ;  but  the 
headsman  knows  for  what  drink  the  sword  is 
thirsting,  and  begs  the  grandmother  to  allow 
him  to  cut  the  little  one's  neck  very  gently,  so 
that  a  few  drops  of  blood  may  be  drawn,  and  the 
weapon  be  appeased.  To  this  excellent  advice 
the  old  woman  refuses  to  listen ;  and  the  sword 
bides  its  time  until  the  inevitable  hour  when 
Annerl,  grown  into  unhappy  womanhood,  is 
brought  upon  the  scaffold  to  die. 

In  this  simple  tale  there  is  that  element  of 
horror  which  is  the  birthright  of  German  fiction. 
Truly  has  Heine  observed  that  his  is  the  moth 
erland  of  superstition,  the  favored  home  of  all 
that  is  fanciful,  and  terrifying,  and  unreal. 
"You  French,"  he  writes,  —  before  the  days 
of  Maupassant,  be  it  remembered,  —  "must  see 
for  yourselves  that  the  horrible  is  not  your 
province,  and  that  France  is  no  fit  home  for 
ghosts  of  any  kind.  When  you  call  upon  them, 
we  must  needs  smile.  Yes,  we  Germans,  who 
remain  serious  at  your  most  pleasant  witticisms, 


224  GHOSTS 

we  laugh  all  the  more  heartily  at  your  ghost 
stories.  For  your  ghosts  are  always  French 
men,  and  French  ghosts,  —  what  a  contradic 
tion  in  terms !  In  the  word  '  ghost '  there  is 
such  a  suggestion  of  loneliness,  surliness,  and 
silence.  In  the  word  '  French '  there  is  so 
much  that  is  social,  witty,  and  prattling.  How 
could  a  Frenchman  be  a  ghost,  or  how  could 
ghosts  exist  in  Paris?" 

They  have  existed,  however,  in  England,  and 
even  in  London,  for  a  good  many  centuries; 
and  bid  fair  to  exist  for  as  many  more,  if  they 
are  not  decoyed  out  of  their  seclusion  by  unwise 
notoriety  and  attentions.  In  China  and  Japan, 
Mr.  Lang  assures  us,  ghosts  do  not  live  a  "  hole- 
and-corner  "  life ;  but  come  boldly  forward,  and 
play  their  parts  in  the  business  and  pleasures 
of  society.  This  is  the  example  which  English 
apparitions  are  being  urged  daily  to  follow,  and 
this  is  the  behavior  which  their  modesty  and 
native  conservatism  have  hitherto  conspired  to 
forbid.  It  is  easy  for  Japanese  ghosts  to  assume 
definite  duties  in  the  world.  They  know  pre 
cisely  what  is  expected  of  them.  The  "well- 


GHOSTS  225 

and-water  "  spectre,  an  inert  shapeless  thing,  all 
slimy  and  limp  and  white,  haunts  the  drinking- 
fountains,  and  peers  malignly  from  the  cold  un 
ruffled  depth.  The  "  chink-and-crevice  "  bogie 
takes  upon  itself  the  congenial  task  of  dropping 
on  you  from  some  dark  corner  of  the  ceiling, 
and  strangling  you  in  its  serpent-like  embraces. 
The  pale,  shadowy  larva  that  rises,  uncoiling 
like  a  mist-wreath,  from  the  grave,  never  deserts 
the  burying-place  which  is  its  congenial  home. 
The  bestial  vampire,  glutting  itself  with  blood, 
crawls  forever  amid  the  desecrated  tombs. 
These  unpleasant  creatures,  and  many  more 
as  bad,  have  had  their  especial  privileges  and 
their  especial  lines  of  labor  marked  out  for 
generations,  and  they  adhere  steadfastly  to  their 
posts.  But  the  trouble  with  English  phantoms 
seems  to  be  that  they  have  not  yet  learned  what 
they  are  good  for,  and  their  miserable  vagueness 
of  purpose  is  the  most  disappointing  and  dis 
heartening  thing  about  them.  "  The  modern 
ghost,"  complains  an  irascible  critic,  "  appears, 
nobody  knows  why.  He  has  no  message  to 
deliver,  no  secret  crime  to  reveal,  no  appoint 


226  GHOSTS 

ment  to  keep,  no  treasure  to  disclose,  no  com 
missions  to  be  executed,  and,  as  an  almost 
invariable  rule,  he  does  not  speak,  even  if  you 
speak. to  him." 

Nevertheless,  in  this  utilitarian  age,  his  pop 
ularity  is  ever  on  the  increase,  and  there  are 
plenty  of  enthusiasts  who  think  they  will  yet 
overcome  his  silence,  and  persuade  him  to  as 
sume  a  more  rational  line  of  conduct.  He  has 
friends  in  every  class  of  life  who  ardently  desire 
his  confidence,  and  who,  in  brief  moments  of 
self-deception,  are  prepared  to  think  they  have 
received  it.  Far  back,  in  1584,  that  devout 
writer,  Reginald  Scott,  author  of  the  Discovery 
of  Witchcraft,  ventured  to  ask  with  somewhat 
premature  triumph,  "  Where  are  the  soules  that 
swarmed  in  times  past?  Where  are  the  spirits? 
Who  heareth  their  noises?  Who  seeith  their 
visions?"  To  which  last  questions  Mr.  Lang 
makes  prompt  answer  for  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  :  "  Protestant  clergymen,  officers  in  the 
army,  ladies,  land-agents,  solicitors,  representa 
tives  of  all  classes  except  the  Haunted  House 
Committee  of  the  Psychical  Society."  Fashions 


GHOSTS  227 

have  changed  since  people  sneered  a  little  even 
at  Dr.  Johnson  because  he  stoutly  persisted  in 
fearing  ghosts,  if  not  in  believing  in  them  all  his 
life.  We  are  beginning  now  to  remember  every 
thing  that  has  been  said,  and  well  said,  in  favor 
of  such  fear.  We  are  beginning  to  acknowl 
edge  that  what  universal  reason  proudly  denies, 
universal  apprehension  tremblingly  admits.  We 
read  with  pleasure  Shelley's  modest  words,  writ 
ten,  it  is  true,  after  an  evening  profitably  spent  in 
listening  to  some  of  the  most  ghostly  tales  that 
"Monk"  Lewis  and  Lord  Byron  could  relate. 
"  I  do  not  think,"  muses  the  poet  in  the  solitude 
of  his  bed-chamber,  "  that  all  the  persons  who 
profess  to  discredit  these  visitations  really  dis 
credit  them ;  or,  if  they  do  in  daylight,  are  not 
admonished  by  the  approach  of  loneliness  and 
midnight  to  think  more  respectfully  of  the 
world  of  shadows." 

This  is  candor  itself,  and  Shelley  was  singu 
larly  fitted  for  such  "  melancholy,  pleasurable 
fear,"  because  he  possessed  in  an  unusual  de 
gree  that  extreme  sensitiveness  to  surround 
ings  which  is  a  proper  attribute  both  of  the  poet 


228  GHOSTS 

and  the  ghost-seer.  "  Certain  dark  gardens  cry 
aloud  for  a  murder;  certain  old  houses  demand 
to  be  haunted ;  certain  coasts  are  set  apart  for 
shipwreck,"  says  Mr.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson ; 
and  Burns  condenses  the  same  thought  into 
that  incomparable  line,  "  ghaist-alluring  edi 
fices."  No  one  can  read  the  fragment  of 
Shelley's  Speculations  on  Metaphysics,  in  which 
he  describes  the  subtle  horror  which  thrilled 
him  at  sight  of  an  ordinary  and  well-remem 
bered  landscape,  without  recognizing  the  close 
connection  which  existed  for  him  between  the 
seen  and  the  unseen,  between  the  supernatural 
element  and  its  supremely  commonplace  set 
ting.  It  was  while  walking  with  a  friend  near 
Oxford  that  he  suddenly  came  upon  a  bit  of 
country  familiar  to  him  in  dreams,  and  associated 
with  half  painful,  half  terrible  emotions. 

"The  view  consisted  of  a  windmill,  standing  in 
one  among  many  plashy  meadows,  inclosed  with  stone 
walls ;  the  irregular  and  broken  ground  between 
the  wall  and  the  road  on  which  we  stood ;  a  long 
low  hill  behind  the  windmill,  and  a  gray  covering  of 
uniform  cloud  spread  over  the  evening  sky.  It  was 


GHOSTS  229 

that  season  when  the  last  leaf  has  just  fallen  from  the 
scant  and  stunted  ash.  The  scene  "surely  was  a  com 
mon  scene ;  the  season  and  the  hour  little  calculated 
to  kindle  lawless  thought.  It  was  a  tame,  uninterest 
ing  assemblage  of  objects,  such  as  would  drive  the 
imagination  for  refuge  in  serious  and  sober  talk  to  the 
evening  fireside,  and  the  dessert  of  winter  fruits  and 
wine." 

Yet  this  quiet  English  landscape,  with  its 
dull  monotony  of  tint  and  outline,  awoke  within 
the  poet's  breast  such  bewildering  sensations  of 
terror  that  he  lacked  the  courage  to  describe 
them,  and  Mary  Shelley  affirms  that  the  mere 
recollection  of  those  fearful  moments  agitated 
him  beyond  control.  The  most  curious  cir 
cumstance  in  the  case  is  the  presence  of  the 
windmill,  that  homely  and  friendly  little  build 
ing,  which,  for  some  inexplicable  cause,  carries 
with  it,  in  every  land,  an  unwarranted  flavor  of 
ghostliness.  Heine  was  quick  to  recognize  its 
uncanny  attributes,  and  shivered  when  he  saw 
the  slow  arms  turning  softly  in  the  twilight,  or 
standing,  stiff  and  spectral,  under  a  starlit  sky. 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  was  less  sensitive  than 
most  men  to  impressions  of  this  order,  confesses 


230  GHOSTS 

in  his  journal  that  from  childhood  he  had  secretly 
feared  a  mill,  even  those  cheerful,  noisy  mills 
where  the  great  wheels  revolve  briskly  to  the 
sound  of  rushing  water ;  and  that  the  sight  of  one 
at  sunset  filled  him  with  uneasiness  and  gloom. 
In  the  north,  mills  are  not  only  the  chosen 
haunt  of  witches,  but  have  familiars  of  their 
own,  the  mill-goblins  who  hold  the  wheels  still 
in  the  water  with  their  strong  bony  hands ;  and 
Asbjornsen,  in  Round  the  Yule-Log,  tells  us 
that  he  tried  vainly  to  induce  a  peasant  lad  to 
remain  with  him  in  one  overnight.  "  My  mother 
has  often  told  me  that  there  are  evil  spirits 
dwelling  in  these  mills,"  said  the  prudent  boy, 
and  declined  all  risk  of  their  companionship. 

In  truth,  the  terrible  ghosts  and  demons  of 
the  north  are  not  helpless,  harmless,  speechless, 
purposeless  creatures,  to  be  courted  and  coddled 
like  English  drawing-room  apparitions.  Their 
hands  can  strangle  and  slay;  their  strength  is 
greater  than  the  strength  of  men ;  their  wills 
are  evil  always;  their  malignity  can  never  be 
appeased.  When  overcome,  they  are  to  be 
dreaded  still;  for,  long  ago,  Grettir  the  Strong 


GHOSTS  231 

slew  the  Ghost  of  Glam,  slew  it  manfully  by  the 
seashore,  and  hoped  that  peace  had  come  into 
his  troubled  life.  But  when  the  moonlight 
shone  upon  the  sands,  and  Grettir  looked  on 
the  creature  he  had  killed,  he  beheld  for  the 
first  time  the  horror  of  its  awful  eyes.  Then 
fear  seized  him  who  before  had  never  feared, 
and  from  that  hour  he  dared  not  be  alone  at 
night,  but  trembled  like  a  woman  in  the  dark 
ness,  beseeching  companionship  and  comfort. 
Even  the  Scottish  spectres  are  stronger  and 
more  malign  than  their  English  cousins;  and 
Mr.  Lang,  in  his  Angling  Sketches,  tells  us  a 
ghastly  tale  of  three  Highland  shepherds,  who 
sat  talking  of  their  sweethearts  in  a  lonely 
sheiling,  on  Loch  Awe,  and  wishing,  each  one, 
for  the  presence  of  the  girl  he  loved.  Suddenly 
the  three  young  women  entered,  smiling,  and 
two  of  the  lads  received  them  joyously,  and 
went  with  them  into  dark  corners  of  the  hut. 
But  the  third,  fearing  he  knew  not  what,  sat 
quietly  by  the  fire,  and  played  on  a  little  Jew's- 
harp.  "  Harping  is  good,  if  no  ill  follows  it," 
Baid  the  semblance  of  his  sweetheart  angrily; 


232  GHOSTS 

to  which  the  boy  made  no  reply,  but  kept  on 
playing  steadfastly.  In  a  few  minutes  he  saw, 
trickling  from  one  dim  corner  of  the  sheiling,  a 
tiny  stream  of  blood,  and  presently  a  second 
stream  from  the  other  corner  joined  it  slug 
gishly  in  the  fire-light.  Then  he  arose,  still 
playing,  and  fled  into  the  night,  leaving  his 
dead  comrades  in  the  embraces  of  the  vampires 
who  had  worn  so  falsely  the  masks  of  familiarity 
and  love. 

These  are  not  spirits  to  be  tamed  by  psychical 
research,  and  invited  to  make  themselves  at 
home  in  good  society.  There  is  not  even  a 
great  deal  gained  by  calling  them,  in  the  scien 
tific  language  of  the  day,  "  phantasmogenetic 
agencies,"  as  if  that  elucidated  the  mystery 
or  made  them  comfortable  companions.  It 
were  better,  perhaps,  to  remember  Porphyry's 
warning  that  all  ghosts  and  demons  are  by 
nature  deceitful  and  fond  of  travesty.  It  were 
wiser  to  give  heed  to  old  Richard  Burton,  who 
knew  more  about  such  matters  than  a  wilder 
ness  of  scientists,  and  who  assures  us  plainly  that 
the  most  illiterate  devil  is  an  unsafe  antagonist 


GHOSTS  233 

for  the  most  learned  man.  It  were  true  sagacity 
to  fear  the  powers  of  evil  rather  than  to  patronize 
them.  Faust  is  supercilious  enough  when  Me- 
phistopheles  first  comes  upon  the  scene,  but  he 
learns  a  little  later  on  the  ruthlessness  of  the 
spirit  he  has  invoked.  "  Ghosts  are  rare,  but 
devils  are  plenty,"  says  Cotton  Mather,  and  in 
tracking  the  first  we  may  stumble  unaware  upon 
the  second.  At  its  best,  the  companionship  of 
spectres  makes  but  a  dubious  surrounding  in 
which  to  pass  our  days,  even  though  we  escape 
the  stake  and  fagots  which  the  stern  conserva 
tism  of  our  forefathers  provided  as  a  barrier  for 
such  intercourse.  The  gift  of  second-sight  was 
ever  an  unenviable  as  well  as  an  unhallowed 
possession,  and  the  man  born  to  such  a  fatal 
heritage  had  scant  cause  to  rejoice  in  his  accom 
plishment.  "It  is  certaine,"  says  Kirk  truly, 
"  he  sie  more  gloomy  and  fearfull  things  than  he 
do  gladsome ; "  and  the  ever-present  possibility 
of  being  burned  as  a  warlock  was  hardly  calcu 
lated  to  enhance  the  cheerfulness  of  his  visions. 
Cassandra's  powers,  it  will  be  remembered,  were 
neither  soothing  to  herself  nor  serviceable  to 


234  GHOSTS 

her  neighbors.  Theoclymenus  had  probably 
but  scant  appetite  for  the  Odyssean  banquet 
after  he  had  seen  the  shrouds  woven  slowly 
around  the  doomed  wooers.  The  old  woman  in 
Mr.  Frazer's  narrative  who  beheld  a  sailor  boy 
"  walking  in  his  winding-sheet,  sewed  up  from 
top  to  toe,"  besought  in  vain  that  the  lad  might 
be  left  on  shore.  Her  words  were  unheeded, 
and  the  little  fellow  sailed  away  to  his  death; 
another  instance  of  the  futility  of  portents.  The 
Scottish  minister  who,  in  1811,  unwillingly  con 
fessed  to  having  seen  the  corpse  candles  rise 
at  night  from  the  graves  of  two  children  and 
proceed  to  the  house  of  their  father,  who  died 
the  following  day,  had  especial  cause  for  vexa 
tion  at  his  own  inopportune  testimony.  For 
years  he  had  preached  against  the  wicked  cre 
dulity  and  superstitions  of  his  parishioners,  and 
it  seemed  hard  that  he,  of  all  men,  should  have 
been  selected  by  the  ironical  humor  of  the 
spirit  world  to  be  a  witness  of  these  uncanny 
and  unwelcome  manifestations. 

Search  where  we  will,  read  what  we  may,  we 
find  little  to  warrant  us  in  the  belief  that  ghosts 


GHOSTS  235 

will  ever  develop  into  reasonable  creatures,  or 
that  we  shall  ever  succeed  in  piercing  the  mys 
tery  of  their  perverse  and  wavering  natures. 
They  do  not  change  with  the  changing  cen 
turies.  Our  attitude  towards  them  varies  with 
every  new  current  of  thought,  every  successive 
tide  of  susceptibility  or  skepticism;  but  they 
are  the  same  freakish  and  elusive  phantoms 
that  they  were  in  the  days  of  Thessalian  magic 
or  of  Salem  witchcraft.  Mr.  Lang,  sifting  the 
subject  through  the  five  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  pages  of  Cock  Lane  and  Common- Sense, 
turning  on  it  every  light,  and  patiently  explor 
ing  every  avenue  of  approach,  comes  at  last  to 
the  conclusion  that  we  know  nothing  at  all 
about  it,  and  are  not  in  the  least  likely  to  find 
anything  out.  How  one,  reared  in  wholesome 
fear  of  the  supernatural,  and  looking  back  upon 
a  childhood  of  "  variegated  and  intense  misery, 
recurring  with  especial  vigor  at  bed-time," 
should  have  the  hardihood  to  write  so  flippantly 
of  ghosts  and  ghost-seers  passes  my  compre 
hension.  "We  do  not  know  the  laws  of  that 
country,"  says  Charles  Lamb,  and  he  who  has 


236  GHOSTS 

ever  trembled  trembles  still  when  loneliness  and 
midnight  bring  him  face  to  face  with  "  the  terror 
that  walketh  in  darkness."  Stories  may  be 
amusing,  and  apparitions  may  lack  every  quality 
which  a  self-respecting  and  fear-inspiring  ghost 
should  possess.  "  Many  of  them/'  says  Mr. 
Lang,  reproachfully,  "  have  a  perfect  craze  for 
announcing  that  bodies  or  treasures  are  buried 
where  there  is  nothing  of  the  sort."  Many 
make  no  announcements,  and  appear  to  have 
no  distinct  notion  of  what  they  want,  or  why 
they  are  manifesting  themselves.  Many  find  a 
somewhat  childish  pleasure  in  moving  furniture, 
or  breaking  the  kitchen  crockery.  Many  can 
do  nothing  but  rap,  and  practice  this  solitary 
accomplishment  with  monotonous  and  purpose 
less  fidelity.  And  many  more,  like  the  fabulous 
esprit  d?  Orleans ,  have  an  unpleasant  flavor  of 
charlatanism  and  quackery.  Yet  our  hearts 
confess  to  a  survival  of  the  old,  unreasoning 
fear,  the  primitive  emotions  which  centuries  do 
little  to  efface.  Long,  long  ago,  in  Greece,  the 
dogs  howled  dismally  when  Hecate  stood  by 
the  cross-ways;  and  even  now  her  presence 


GHOSTS  237 

overshadows  us,  when  we  waken  at  night  to 
hear  the  melancholy  sounds.  Long,  long  ago, 
the  ghost  of  Caligula  walked  in  th«  gardens  of 
Lavinia;  and  superstition  whispers  to  us  even 
now  that  the  troubled  spirits  which  haunt  the 
abodes  of  man  are  no  friendly  shades  of  de 
parted  mediocrity,  but  phantoms  evil  in  every 
instinct,  and  linked  with  inexpiable  crime. 


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